


Caught in the Slipstream

by antharyn



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Everybody loves Marco, Flashback Heavy, Gen, M/M, Manga Spoilers, More friendship than romance for now, Multiple Pov, Possibly Not Dead Marco, Slow Burn, canonverse, lots of feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 18:20:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 44,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11213619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antharyn/pseuds/antharyn
Summary: SPOILERS UNTIL MANGA CHAPTER 90.The Survey Corps finally reaches the Ocean, but the fight is far from over. Bertolt's memories filter into Armin's consciousness through dreams and nightmares, but nothing has been useful until Jean confesses that after all this time he still wishes Marco was with them.It triggers a memory and reveals the horrifying truth of their friend's disappearance. The squad is suddenly forced to consider possibilities they're nowhere near ready to face.Latest Chapter (15/09/2017): "Only one of us can be wrong: he’s either dead or alive, either an enemy or an ally. There is no in-between."





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I am so late to this party, I can hardly stand it. Nothing much happens in this chapter. I’m just basically laying out the setting and jump-off point in the timeline for the whole thing. This starts halfway through Chapter 90 in the Manga so SPOILER ALERT, if you haven't gone that far yet. It'll quickly deviate from canon thereafter. There will be Marco/Jean and I will be diving headfirst into different characters' POVs over the course of this fic! Now let's get this show on the road!
> 
> Things you should know:  
> 1\. I’ve only read the latest chapters of the manga so I don’t know the fine details of the Universe by heart (yet)  
> 2\. I’ve only seen Season 1 of the anime and this was over a year ago.  
> 3\. I never got over Marco’s death  
> 4\. Ever  
> 5\. I haven’t written anything since 2014  
> 6\. I have no idea what I’m doing  
> 7\. Things will get interesting, I swear

" _The majority of this world is covered in a body of water called the Ocean. Fire water, land made of ice, fields of sand. The Outside world must be way bigger than the land within the walls." -Armin Arlert_

The first thing Jean thinks of when his feet touch the water is his mom. The water is cool and crystal clear, sparkling as far as the eye can see. His mother would love it. It would soothe the aches in her joints. She’d make the best dishes from the fish and shellfish he can see in the water.

SPLASH!

Jean jumps as cold water hits him from behind.

“My eyes!!!!” Sasha wails and Connie just laughs and throws more water at her. On a whim, Jean brings the water to his lips and sputters. “Whoa! It’s salty!” It seems that all the stories Armin told them about it way back in training were true.

A little ways beside him, Mikasa is carefully picking her way to Armin with her boots in her hands just as the blond bends down to pick something up from the water. A seashell. Jean’s mom would love one of those, too. He hears Mikasa gasp, probably from how cold the water is, but then she flashes a smile at Armin like she can’t believe they’re all doing this: running barefoot across the waves like they haven’t lost so many of their friends to get to this point right here, right now. Jean can’t believe it either.

After all they’ve been through—all the men and women they’ve lost—they’re finally here. They found the world the Survey Corps fought so hard for so long for, what thousands of soldiers died for. It exists. It was never a waste of time or funding, never a waste of lives. This is the Survey Corps’ victory, Humanity’s victory, from the very first expedition to the last. Jean feels pride swell in his chest just thinking about it.

“See? I told you, Eren!” Armin calls to the other Titan Shifter who’s standing a few feet farther from the shore, away from everyone else. “There’s a giant saltwater lake that no merchant can deplete, not even in his liftetime!” Those were his Grandfather’s words, Jean remembers from the days Armin regaled them with stories his family told him as a child.

“Yeah...” Eren says in awe, his back to Armin and the others. His eyes are staring far out into the sea.

Jean doesn’t hear what Eren says next because suddenly Connie and Sasha are plowing into him and dragging him into the water. They all go down with a huge splash and the two idiots come up laughing while he’s choking from all the saltwater he just swallowed. “Oi!” He cries out and kicks at them, but the two skip away, cackling with laughter. He struggles to get back up against the waves and means to go after them when the look on Armin and Mikasa’s faces stops him.

He turns around and sees Eren is still deep in thought, facing the ocean, his dark brown hair blowing in the wind. And then Jean hears him speak.

“On the other side of the wall is the ocean, and on the other side of the ocean is freedom…” Eren starts and all around them heads turn to look at the man. Jean rolls his eyes, anticipating another one of the Titan Shifter’s famous tirades about Humanity striking back. They had become few and far in between since they had recovered Shiganshina, but the guy was still prone to them every now and then. Personally, Jean thought Armin was the better speaker, but Eren’s spiel was still worth listening to. Even if Jean only ever made fun of him for it.

Then Eren turns to look at them and the mood suddenly drops from the look in his eyes. Jean almost wanted to look around to check if there was a Titan behind him. “We believed in that for so long, but it’s not true,” Eren says.

The world seems to come to a halt then. Sasha and Connie stop their antics, and Hange and Levi halt mid-conversation. Jean feels a chill run down his own spine and Armin and Mikasa stiffen where they stand.

“What’s waiting for us on the other side of the ocean is the enemy. Everything is as I saw it in my father’s memories, right?” Eren glares and points a finger out into the ocean.  “So if we kill the enemy, the one waiting for us on the other side, will we finally be free?”

The question hangs over all of them. They had been preoccupied with finding the Ocean for months. That was the objective: find the Ocean, find the wall. That’s where they would begin building their defenses. They haven’t even considered sailing in it, much less crossing it. Not yet, and certainly not without orders from the brass.

Eren Yeager jumps the gun yet again.

“Idiot,” Levi says with a frown. “Not even your Titan form can swim across all that, brat.”

Eren sputters and the tension quickly diffuses, but the mood is considerably subdued. Hange smiles softly at them all. “The Survey Corps has completed its objective for this expedition, Eren. We have our orders.”

Eren sighs, and Jean feels irritated beyond belief. One day. Damned Yeager couldn’t give them _one day_ of peace. Didn’t they deserve it? After all they’ve been through?

Eren leaves the water and Mikasa follows him out. Everybody starts to retreat back to shore and there goes their victory, negated by how much more they still had to do, how much farther they still had to go. Jean suddenly feels like he’d give anything in the world to have Sasha and Connie back to dunk him back in the water right now. That was the most relaxed any of them had ever been in a long time. They haven’t laughed like that in months. They earned this, damn it! But his two friends were back on the sand now, drying themselves off to put on their boots.

“What was _that_ all about?” Jean grouses and Armin turns to look at him.

“It’s not his fault,” the blond says softly. “He’s been struggling ever since Shiganshina. He won’t say anything, but I can tell. The last year has really been the worst for him…”

Jean stays quiet. He knows Armin is speaking from experience. Jean isn’t going to pretend he knew the first thing about being a Titan Shifter. He’s seen Eren and Armin wake up from nightmares enough times to know the power came with a price. Too high a price. He probably would have gone crazy if it was him in their shoes.

Armin doesn’t have as many nightmares as Eren does. Jean overhears them the few times Eren and Armin talk about the dreams, but it looks like the memories that filter their way into the blond’s consciousness from Bertolt were the ones from their days in training. Jean knows Armin and Commander Hange tried to glean as much from Armin’s nightmares as they could, but Bertolt had been little more than a child when he got here. The older memories were unclear, and the more recent ones were heartbreaking. Jean’s learned not to ask after the first few times Armin woke up screaming and in tears.

Armin sighs then and Jean looks at the seashell the blond still has in his hand and then back out into the Ocean. The wind whips through his soaked shirt and hair and he can taste the salt in the breeze. Suddenly a wave of anxiety hits him as he feels the weight of reality come crashing back down again. They’ve found the Ocean, the wall, the edge of their territory. Things are only going to escalate from here, whether the enemy comes to them or they cross the seas themselves. Eren might have jumped the gun just now, but there’s no fooling themselves into thinking that it wouldn’t to come to that. Maybe not today, not in the immediate future. Jean might not even live to see it. But it _would_ come to that. The fight isn’t over.

“Hey, Armin…” Jean says quietly and the shorter scout turns to look at him. “Is the ocean everything you ever dreamed it would be?”

The blond Titan Shifter blinks up at him and swallows hard, nodding almost to himself. “It is.”

Jean nods, too. One more victory for them if they asked him. Something tugs at his heart then, and there it is—always—the melancholy that bleeds in from the back of his mind after every triumph, every reprieve, no matter how small or fleeting. “I wish Marco could have seen this.”

“Yeah…me, too,” Armin says softly and tosses the seashell back into the water.

Behind them Commander Hange gives the order to set up a camp and perimeter and everybody quickly gets to work.

Jean and Armin take one last look at the waves before turning back to shore.

It was a good five minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it. I'll have the next chapter up shortly! Happy birthday, Marco. 
> 
> Teaser for the next chapter: "Between you and me, Armin, another Titan on our side wouldn't hurt."


	2. The First Night by the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spend the night by the Ocean, and while Armin has dreamed about it since childhood, something just doesn't feel right.

Eren never told him how the Titan and Human inside a shifter are at perpetual war with each other, how the mind sometimes becomes a fog of memories fighting to make it to conscious thought. Armin wonders if it’s because Eren was younger when Grisha turned him into a Titan. Had he been living with it for so many years that his father’s memories, so complex and confusing to a child, are locked deep down inside the recesses of his mind, breaking through the cracks only because of what he they found in that basement?

Because Eren never spoke of memories that weren't his own until after they recovered Shiganshina. His stories of his family and his childhood were real—memories that spurned him to fight for the good of Humanity. Armin has them, too. He knows which ones are his. His parents. His Grandfather. His childhood in Shiganshina.

It’s the years after that that are tricky. His memories of their training are near identical to Bertolt’s, he isn’t sure whose is whose. Sometimes he sees classes, field and combat training. Other times he sees Wall Maria right before it was breached, only he’s standing on the other side of the wall.

He’s taken to writing what he remembers down as quickly as he can when he wakes up, but the memories haven’t been forthcoming. A journey across the sea (he can’t remember anything before that no matter how hard he tries), snippets of what must have been the trek from the shore to the wall. Sometimes there are other children, most times it’s just Annie and Reiner. Armin knows for certain that those other children died along the way. Commander Hange has been the epitome of patience, but after months of nothing—or at least nothing they don’t already know—she stops pushing and leaves Armin to decipher his dreams on his own. He hasn’t had any significant one in months anyhow. Even their expedition across the land in the reverse of what must have been Bertolt’s journey to the walls sparks nothing.

But something is different tonight.

Armin can feel it. Something’s triggered inside him, just right out of his grasp. Was it the sound of the waves, the sight of the sea, that did it? Or was it what Eren said about what’s waiting for them across the ocean? Armin doesn’t know and he’s quiet throughout dinner, almost dreading going to sleep, because he knows that when he gets like this it’s going to be bad.

He looks around the campfire, anxious for a distraction. Eren has been somewhat subdued since his outburst earlier, and Mikasa and Captain Levi are quietly keeping an eye on him. Sasha and Connie share stories with the other scouts and there’s movement behind them when Jean relieves a sentry on perimeter watch to start his own shift. Armin frowns as he watches Jean disappear into the gloom, something niggling in the back of his mind.

He chalks it up to worry and chides himself. Titans don’t come near the ocean and haven’t been active at night since the attack on Castle Utgard, and only then because of the Beast Titan. They’re all safe here.

Soft footsteps suddenly come from behind him and he turns around to see Commander Hange standing over him with a smile.

“Commander Hange,” Armin greets, standing up.

“At ease, soldier,” she chuckles. Then she looks at Armin with an unreadable expression on her face. “You’ve been quiet.”

“I was thinking about what Eren said. About what’s across the ocean.”

Hange nods and then cocks her head to one side. “Walk with me.”

They walk in silence with Hange’s guards following at a discrete distance. They go uphill a ways before finally coming to a stop at a point overlooking the harbor below. This is the harbor where the 145th King fled to when they retreated from the Main Continent. Now it was a port for the Marleyans to infiltrate their land.

“Mikasa tells me you’ve dreamt about the ocean since you were children,” Hange says, breaking the silence. “What did you think you’d find?”

Armin blinks at the question. He thinks about all the stories his parents whispered to him all those years ago, their excitement at the prospect of ever seeing it themselves. Honestly, he doesn’t know where to start. “It’s true I’ve wanted to see the ocean for as long as I can remember, but now that I’m here, knowing what we know…” He laughs softly. “I’m sorry, Commander. This wasn’t in any of the books I read when I was a child.”

Hange nods in understanding. “Hard to imagine that for centuries we’ve essentially been fighting ourselves or what we now have come to know as our own people,” she begins. “Eren’s right. The real monsters are across the ocean. All these years they’ve known about us, doomed people to walk the earth as Titans to trap and kill us. Made them suffer so much that they hate us for leaving them behind. Who knows how advanced their weapons are or how many Titan shifters they’ve got. There’s so much we still don’t know.” She shakes her head in frustration. “But our concern is setting up the defense of our own borders. I don’t doubt they’ll be back, Armin. I can only hope we have enough time to get ready. We can’t let them land on our soil again.”

The blond nods and Hange stares out into the harbor where the enemy ships must have docked bringing in their prisoners years ago, where the Beast Titan must have escaped when he was so heavily injured by Captain Levi. From the look in her eye, Armin can tell Hange is imagining Eren Krueger’s Titan destroying the ships and killing the Marley guards that brought Grisha Jaeger and his comrades to these shores. It’s a story that still sends a chill down their spines and gives Eren nightmares. “I wonder if it will be enough,” she says almost to herself.

“Commander?” Armin asks, not sure what she was getting at.

Hange smiles and looks out to the where the moon is shining brightly over the ocean. “Ah, don’t mind me! Just the senseless rambling of a crazy old lady!”

Armin can tell she’s playing down her real concerns, but he doesn’t comment. Then Hange suddenly becomes serious again as she stares back down at the harbor, the patch over her left eye making her look all the more foreboding. “But between you and me, Armin,” she says as she starts to turn and head back toward the camp. “Another Titan on our side wouldn’t hurt.”

Armin ducks his head at that and nods. “Yeah.” Something cold touches the back of his mind all of sudden and he almost misses Hange inviting him to walk back to camp with her. He frowns at the foreign feeling as it begins to slide down his spine, and he shivers in the evening air. It doesn’t go away even when he gets close to the campfire and sits between Eren and Mikasa, who both ask him where he went off to.

“Just talking with Commander Hange,” he answers as he settles down. Both his friends are already in their bedrolls. It’s late and none of them are on perimeter watch for the night. There’s no reason to stay awake longer than they need to be, yet Armin still doesn’t want to sleep.

Eren must sense it because he rolls over and looks at him with concern. “What did she say?”

“N-nothing!” Armin stammers, starting to get frustrated with himself. “It’s just…can you believe we finally found the ocean?” he says, giving them a shaky smile and hoping to deflect their concerns. “After all these years…”

It works and Eren flushes, looking away and probably now realizing he ruined it for his friends earlier.

A hand suddenly clasps Armin’s. It’s Mikasa.

“Armin, get some sleep,” she says quietly. “Tomorrow, Eren and I will swim with you. As far as we can go for as long as you like.” Eren and Mikasa both look up at him and smile and Armin feels himself getting flushed from the attention.

“Thanks! I’d like that…”

Mikasa’s smile widens for a moment before she frowns. “Your hands are freezing,” she says, tightening her hold on him.

“It was windy by the ocean,” Armin explains and Mikasa gives a short huff before she sidles closer to him, still in her bedroll. Eren does the same and soon Armin can feel the warmth of their bodies surround him.

“Thank you,” he says to his friends as he finally slides into his bedroll. The fires have gone down and the night is getting colder, but like this he feels the contentment of being safe and surrounded by his friends. But something still tugs at the back of his consciousness, a feeling of wrongness on a level he can’t quite understand and it lingers even as he feels his friends start to fall asleep.

 _Get it together, Armin,_ he tells himself as he fidgets in his bedroll. The minutes tick by.

“Just go to sleep, idiot,” Eren grumbles sleepily, swatting his hip with a hand, and Armin apologizes absently.

He closes his eyes.

The next thing he knows is he's waking up, screaming.

* * *

The moon is bright in the cloudless sky, its silver light reflecting from the long grass that sways with the wind.

Jean guides his horse, Fliss, on a meandering path along the cliffs that overlook the ocean, careful not to get too close to the edge. His eyes periodically dart from one side to the other as he keeps a steadfast lookout, taking in as much of the horizon under the moonlight as he can. Titans haven’t attacked in the darkness of night since the horror in Castle Utgard, and in this quiet their heavy footfalls could easily be sensed a mile away. But Jean doesn’t want to take any chances. They’ve come too far to get careless now.

Thankfully, everything is quiet and Fliss is calm. The hours go by without incident and the brightness of the moon makes his patrol relatively undemanding. More than once he pulls at the reins for his horse to take him closer to the cliffside so he can see the waves break over the shore.

He still can’t get over it. The ocean. Finally being here. It’s so different from how he imagined it from Armin’s stories. Back then, he thought it would be just like any other pond or small lake he had already seen. Oh, how he was wrong.

On the third hour, he nears the path that leads down to the ocean. The sound of hooves reaches his ear and another sentry clears the rise, having come from the beach himself, and he nods silently to Jean. Jean signals nothing out of the ordinary on his own end before beginning his own descent down the beach to continue his patrol. He feels excitement stir inside him. He’s been looking forward to this stretch of the perimeter, the one that takes him right down to the shore.

His horse spooks as soon as they hit the sand, and Jean shushes her gently. “Oi, it’s just sand, you old fleabag,” he grouses. The animal snorts like she knows Jean just insulted her before calming down and tottering on.

Something glints in the sand farther into the beach and Jean goes to investigate.

“Easy, Fliss,” Jean orders as he walks them closer to the water toward the object. It’s another seashell, almost identical to the one Armin had earlier, wet and glistening just a few feet from the shoreline. Jean hops off his horse and hunkers down to pick it up, dusting the wet sand off it and drying it off with the end of his cloak.

 _Mom would like this_ , he thinks, turning the cool object in the palm of his hand. Again his mount snorts, like she thinks the sea shell is a lousy gift to bring his mother back after all the trouble and worry he’s caused her over the years. Sure it’s true, but he doesn’t need to hear that from his horse. “Gettin’ real tired of your sass, Fleabag.”

He chuckles when the animal seems to huff and then looks out to where the moon paints the ocean a silver-gray. The tide’s come in and the waves are larger than they were earlier in the day. Jean marvels at its power. Compared to the enormity of the ocean, the Walls—the Titans, even—seem like nothing. Would they drown, he wonders. Armin had said there was no touching the deep ocean’s bottom. If they could take all the Titans and throw them into the ocean, would that finally be the end of them all?

There’s a loud crash all of a sudden as a huge wave breaks over the shore. It sends the cold water all the way up to where Jean’s crouched down, and his boots and the end of his cloak are soaked before he can get out of the way.

“Damn,” he curses, getting up to at least save his cloak from getting wetter. The water recedes as quickly as it came, and Jean watches as it takes the sand around his boots with it to reveal a second seashell lying only inches from his feet.

Jean picks it up on an impulse, admiring it in the moonlight. He’s got his hands on two gorgeous seashells now. One is definitely going to his mother. He idly wonders who he’ll give the second one to. He doesn’t have anyone else waiting for him back home, and he wouldn’t give it to Hitch if she paid him. Everyone who’s of any importance to him right now is with him right here on this grassy knoll by the beach.

Well, everyone still alive, at least…

 _No._ His heart thumps painfully in his chest. “Don’t go there, Kirstein,” he admonishes himself, pushing away thoughts of the many friends and acquaintances they’ve lost. _Don’t, don’t, don’t._

Too late.

“Ah, fuck,” he sits back on the sand, not giving a shit how wet it still is. Fliss whinnies and settles her muzzle against his back the way all the Survey Corps horses are trained to help their riders back up, and Jean brushes her off, his thoughts taking a turn for the worse the way they always do when he’s left to himself for too long.

Everyone struggles with the loss in their own way. He knows Sasha cries when she thinks no one’s looking. He knows Connie takes long rides out on his own to get some space. Jean likes to think he’s learned to handle it better than he did when things first went to shit, but some nights are harder than others. The quiet ones and, oddly, the ones where they’re supposed to have something to celebrate, are the worst. It’s almost like they don’t deserve to enjoy any victory completely considering how many people are no longer with them.

It’ll most likely be this way for the rest of his life.

Fliss pushes at him again, but Jean barely notices as his ghosts come back to haunt him like they do every night—and always one particular ghost more than the others. He suddenly knows without a doubt who he would have given the second seashell to if only that person was still alive.

_“I wish Marco could have seen this…”_

Fuck, fuck, fuck, why did he say that? Why is he thinking about him of all people right now? Don’t the others he fought with deserve the same? To see the ocean they only ever dreamt about? So many people got closer to the Ocean than Marco ever did. Marco never even made it over the Wall…

As always, the grief quickly burns into anger and he suddenly hates the second seashell he’s holding in the palm of his hand—the one that now reminds him that apart from his mother, he doesn’t have anyone else anymore. Just the rabble of misfits who were lucky enough to have made it this far. Angrily, Jean throws his arm back to chuck the damned thing back into the Ocean.

That’s when he hears the scream.

“What the fuck?!” Jean whirls around and Fliss rears back and nickers agitatedly. His brain is wiped clear of all other thoughts except getting back to the others, and he’s on her in a heartbeat, kicking her into a mad dash back up the cliffs. Fliss is fast, one of the fastest in the Corps, and she’s never let Jean down since they started riding together after Shiganshina. But right now she just can’t seem to run fast enough now that Jean realizes the bloodcurdling scream came from the camp. Jean’s sure of it.

 _Titans attacking at night!_ He has a flashback of the heartbreak when the news of Castle Utgard reached them. _How many are there?! How did they get past the perimeter?! How are they active at night?! Unless…did the Beast Titan come back?!_ Jean’s heart thunders in his chest as Fliss clears the pass and they’re back on the hill where the camp is.

The campfires are a dull glow up ahead and he unsheathes his blades, bringing his right hand to his lips like always, as he and Fliss bolt across the plain. He sees the shadows moving up ahead, thrown onto the grass by the light of the campfire and Jean feels rage burn in every fiber of his being. _I’m not gonna let you freaks take this away from us! Not without a fight!_

Jeans leaps up to plant both feet on his saddle, ready to switch to maneuvering gear, blades at the ready. He roars a fierce battle cry when suddenly Commander Hange’s voice rings out loud and clear.

“STAND DOWN!!!!!!!”

Jean swears and drops back into his saddle, pulling at Fliss’s reins. All around them there’s a blur of movement as the other sentries who must have come running from their own positions did the same.

“Titans at night, Commander!” Jean calls out, awaiting confirmation, but he doesn’t get one. The camp is a mess. There are scouts running around, some on horseback, others on foot, all getting into a defensive position.

Commander Hange stands at the center, her glasses glinting harshly in the firelight, but she’s looking past all of them. “Levi!” She calls out into the darkness and the shorter man practically materializes from the gloom behind them on horseback.

“All clear,” he deadpans as he dismounts, and Hange nods and shouts her command. “Fan out! Extend the perimeter by one klick in each direction! The noise could attract any Titan that can stay active at night! We’ll handle things here!”

Jean frowns and looks around. There definitely aren’t any Titans around as far as he can tell. So what was all the screaming about?

“Armin!”

Jean's gut clenches when he hears the panic in Eren’s voice. What’s wrong with Armin? He dismounts and comes running over, pushing his way through the people already gathered around until he can see the shorter blond. He stops dead in his tracks.

_What the hell..._

Armin looks like he’s just seen a ghost. His skin is as pale as a sheet, his eyes wide but clearly unseeing. Tears ran down his face, soaking his shirt. His breath comes in hitching sobs and he’s trembling head to foot. He’s obviously had another nightmare, and from the look of it, it had been especially horrible.

“Oi, Armin! Look at me!” Eren shakes the smaller man by the shoulders, trying to snap him out of it. Mikasa, Sasha, and Connie all hover over them, but it’s Commander Hange who knows what to do.

“Everyone, step back,” she orders. “Give him room.”

There’s a loud ripping sound as she tears a few sheets of paper from a notebook and procures a pencil from her pocket. She’s calm as she approaches him slowly. She’s clearly done this before. Everyone takes a wary step back except Eren and Mikasa, but Hange ignores them as she crouches down to Armin’s level.

“Armin,” she says firmly to get his attention. She holds out the paper and pencil where Armin can see them. “What did you see?”

The blond doesn’t answer, doesn’t seem to even hear her, and Jean feels sick. He’s never seen Armin like this.

“Armin,” Hange says again, pushing more authority into her voice. This time she pushes the paper and pencil into Armin’s hands. “I’m going to ask you again: what did you see?”

For a moment it seems like Armin still isn’t going to answer her, catatonic as he is. Jean gets even more worried and there’s no mistaking the anxiety on Eren and Mikasa’s faces. Then they all jump when Armin takes a deep, shuddering breath. One breath. Two. His eyes begin to clear, and it looks like that’s what Hange is waiting for.

“Write it down, Armin. While you still can.”

They all watch with bated breath as Armin swallows thickly once. Tears are still streaming down his face, but his eyes were alert this time and finally he offers a timid salute with a fist over his heart before he starts to write.

Hange orders them not to move so much as a muscle with a hard glint in her eye.

Eren once mentioned this to Jean and the others, that the first thing he and Armin have to do after a memory is triggered is to write it down. Mikasa, Hange, and Levi appear to have seen it enough times for it not to be too much out of the ordinary, but the rest of them haven’t and it makes them all anxious.

“Don’t you have a perimeter to watch, Kirstein?”

Jean nearly jumps out of his own skin, and he looks down to where Captain Levi is glaring up at him. That’s right. He’s still on sentry duty and he’s supposed to be on the perimeter with the other scouts, keeping an eye out on Titans that might have been drawn to the noise. But he’s caught between getting back into position and finding out what new memory Armin has uncovered. All the other soldiers like him ever get is second hand information, no doubt already omitted of some crucial details Command didn’t think ordinary soldiers need to know.

But the look on the Corporal’s face leaves no room to argue and Jean relents.

“Yes, sir,” he salutes and then starts to move away from the crowd as quietly as he can. The others will take care of Armin, he tells himself. What use is he here anyway? He’ll find out from the others soon enough. He carefully makes his way back to Fliss, trying his best not to disrupt the silence and stillness Hange seems to need for Armin. He’s only gone a few steps when someone calls him back, though.

“Jean…” It’s barely a whisper, but it’s Mikasa, and the way she says his name suddenly makes all the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “I think you should stay…”

He looks back at her confused, but Mikasa doesn’t say anymore. Her eyes are unreadable as always, but her face has suddenly gone as white as Armin’s. She’s standing stiffly over Armin and Eren, who is only staring intently into the blond’s face. Levi looks from Jean to Mikasa curiously, letting her infraction slide for now.

“Forget what I said,” Levi growls. He sends another soldier to take Jean’s place in the perimeter and orders Jean to stay. Jean suddenly has a very bad feeling about this.

Armin continues writing for what seems like an eternity, but must have only been a few minutes. His hands shake terribly and he keeps taking deep, stuttering breathes. It’s only Hange, Levi, and his friends from the 104th that are left now, and they all look at each other apprehensively with only one question in mind.

What the hell did Armin see in Bertolt’s memories?

SNAP!

Everyone except Hange and Levi jumps when the tip of the pencil breaks from how hard Armin is pressing it down on the ground. Armin lets it drop limply before he slumps back into Eren’s waiting arms. The two Titan shifters have obviously pulled each other through more than their fair share of nightmares.

Slowly, as if she’s afraid to make any sudden movements, Hange reaches out to take the pieces of paper before quickly poring over what Armin’s written. Her brows draw together in concern, and they all wait with bated breath.

And to the abject horror of those from the 104th, she says the name of a boy she never had a chance to meet.

For a long moment there’s total silence, like a vacuum’s settled over them, sucking out all the noise. Then Sasha gasps and clamps a hand over her mouth. Eren and Connie look like they’ve had all the blood drained from their faces, and Jean feels like his heart’s just stopped.

“What did you say?” Jean says slowly, staring wide-eyed at Hange, who only stares back evenly. She’s gauging each of their reactions, looking at one face then another. Jean feels like there’s a dead weight over his chest that keeps him from breathing properly. It dawns on him that Mikasa must have been reading what Armin was writing over his shoulder. That’s why she called him back. He forgets protocol, forgets all his training as he stands there unable to move, feeling rage burn every rational thought in his head. _Don’t say that name and then look away from me, you bitch!_ “What the hell did you say?!”

The others are looking at him in horror now, but Jean doesn’t care. Not if Commander Hange had just said what he thinks she did. Because there’s no way… there’s no way in hell…

He’s stepping forward before he realizes it. He’ll strangle an explanation out of her if he has to. But his foot barely lands on the grass before there’s a vise-like grip on his arm, harsh and unrelenting, deep enough to make even the bone ache. 

“Consider your next move very carefully, Kirstein,” Corporal Levi says dangerously. His other hand is on the hilt of one of his blades. He’s glaring at everyone else around them. “Pull yourselves together, all of you!”

Jean snarls then and means to rip Levi’s hand off him when the Corporal tightens his hold until Jean can barely stand the pain. He glares daggers at the shorter man instead, his hands closing into tight fists.

“Levi, let him go.”

Everyone turns to look at Hange. She’s still standing over where Eren is crouched over Armin’s trembling form, the campfire blazing behind her. Jean still wants to lunge at her, at the crumpled pieces of paper she holds in one hand. But he knows he won’t make it another inch forward without Levi slicing him up into ribbons.

The Corporal sighs then lets go of Jean’s arm, but he still keeps himself between the sandy-haired hothead and the Commander of the Survey Corps. He glances back a Hange and they share a cryptic look before they both turn back to the shell-shocked scouts.

“Well?” Levi barks impatiently, scowling at all of them. “Who the hell is Marco Bott?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be up in about a week or so depending on my schedule! I hope you all enjoyed this one!
> 
> In the next chapter: Jean's not quite sure he can handle the truth.


	3. Ambivalence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean can't decide if knowing for sure is better than not knowing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes flashbacks. This is where it starts to hurt.

He’s riding blind.

His eyes are open, but everything’s a blur, like his brain can’t make any sense out of what he’s seeing, what he’s just heard.

So Jean bends down low over Fliss’s neck and trusts her to carry him as far away from here as fast as she can. They all call him back, of course, but he doesn’t listen. No way is he staying. He can’t stand another second with them.

_Marco Bott. Who the hell is Marco Bott?_

The sound of that name said so indifferently by someone who didn’t give two shits about a boy who deserved so much better makes him sick. Makes him wish he could reach into Levi’s throat and take it back. He knows he’s wrong for running away. He’ll likely be reprimanded for it later, but…

They don’t have the right to say that name. He’s only a serial number and designation to them—just one of the rank and file. There’s no doubt his records have already been put away in some dusty old pile in the bowels of a basement. No one needs to remember a dead soldier, least of all one who never even got to start in his chosen division.

_I’ve wanted to join the Military Police ever since I was a kid…_

Jean feels something splinter in his chest as the memories start tumbling over each other in their rush to escape the cage he’s kept them in all this time. It hurts. It’s almost a physical pain, like a torn muscle or a broken bone. He’s never stopped thinking about Marco. Jean carries the memory of his best friend dearly, like a fragile gem locked in the deepest corner of his heart, guarded almost greedily.  His face, the sound of his voice. His hopes, his dreams. They’re the only things he has left of Marco now, and he’ll be damned if he has to share it with people who never knew or cared about him.

Before he knows it, he’s sobbing out a curse into Fliss’s mane because he can’t stop hearing Levi’s cold, emotionless voice in his head.

_Who the hell is Marco Bott?_

_Jean…_

_Who the hell is Marco Bott?_

_Don’t get mad when you hear this, but…_

_Who the hell is Marco Bott?_

* * *

" _Which one of you is Marco Bott?”_

_Jean arches a brow and looks to the center of the room where a tall, broad-shouldered blond is leaning back against the ladder of one of the bunks, looking around at the rest of the trainees. The guy is huge, but he doesn’t look like he wants to start anything, and Jean quickly loses interest and goes back to the orientation notes he’s reading._

_The trainees are milling about aimlessly, winding down from the first day’s activities. They haven’t been called for supper yet and they kill their time as best they can. Some people are lying still and staying quiet to rest their overtaxed muscles, others talk quietly among themselves. The drop-outs are well on their way back to the landfills, and unless someone decides to quit in the next six hours the guys in this room are stuck with each other for the next three years. Jean chooses to read because he doesn’t really want to talk to anyone yet, but also doesn’t want to come off as weak or lazy by lying down. Even if his muscles are screaming bloody murder from the drills earlier._

_“Excuse me,” someone calls into his bunk and Jean looks up irately, not appreciating the disturbance. The guy ducks his head in and Jean recognizes him from earlier. Short black hair with a fringe parted at the middle, brown eyes, freckles on his face. He’s the one who was beside Jean in the line-up, the one with the long answer Jean couldn’t hear because he was too busy picking himself up off the ground after Shadis knocked him down by his head. Great._

_He and this guy were separated not too long after the drills began, and Jean hopes he doesn’t remember what is now officially the most humiliating moment of Jean’s life. His pride is still hurting more than his head. “Bertolt Hoover, right?” Jean deadpans. He made it a point earlier to read through all the names of those assigned to the bunks around his. It wasn’t too hard; it was all in alphabetical order. Kefka and Linke-Jackson are already in their bunks above him, leaving only Hoover’s right next to Jean._

_The guy looks surprised, though, and he shakes his head. “Ah, no.” He smiles and cocks his head in the direction of the tall blond from earlier who is now lying on the top bunk next to what looks like an even taller brunette. “Reiner over there was looking for me to switch bunks with Bertolt. Apparently they come from the same village and know each other well. It makes sense that they’d want to stay together.” He shrugs and settles farther into the bunk with his things._

_Jean only nods absently. He’s not in the mood to make friends just yet, but the guy doesn’t seem to mind as he starts to empty his rucksack of his meager belongings. A few minutes pass in silence and Jean largely ignores the other trainee until he twists around again to face Jean._

_“Ah, sorry. Where are my manners?” He scratches the back of his neck self-consciously before extending a hand to Jean. “Marco Bott from Jinae. And you?”_

_Jean blinks at the proffered appendage. Jinae? That’s a farming village far out in the outskirts of the Wall Rose territories.  Nobody important comes from Jinae. Just his luck! Of all the cadets he had to be in close proximity to, of course it had to be someone who isn’t remotely interesting or important. And who needs manners in military training anyway?_

_Jean sighs and straightens himself, puffing out his chest and staring Marco down as they shake hands. “Jean Kirstein. Trost.”_

_If his coldness bothers Marco, the other guy doesn’t show it. His hands are rough and calloused. Definitely farmer’s hands. The guy’s even dressed like a farmer. Jeez. “Nice to meet you,” Marco says, making Jean snort. Marco frowns slightly._

_“You don’t know that,” Jean scoffs with audacity. “I could be the biggest asshole you’ve ever met in your life.”_

_/Boom. Way to go, Kirstein./ That certainly takes Marco aback, and the brunette blinks and retracts his hand. Jean sneers at the color that now tinges Marco’s freckled cheeks. It’s better to show them early on that he’s not someone they want to mess with. It would have saved Jean a lot of trouble in his childhood if he’d learned to do that back then. To his credit, though, Marco doesn’t look like he’s too offended. Instead, he actually looks curious, which makes Jean’s bravado falter for a split second.  Marco clears his throat softly._

_“Well, it sure is starting to look that way,” he answers, not coldly or unkindly. Just blunt as hell. Then he smirks and boy, wouldn’t that look give Jean himself a run for his money. “I hope your head’s feeling better, though.”_

_Jean’s jaw drops at that one and Marco actually chuckles, his brown eyes shining with mirth. Jean actually feels his face heat up and thinks about picking a fight. Marco’s a little taller than him and has broader shoulders. He looks strong, but Jean’s fast. The other guys are still around, though. What if he loses? Everyone will see! He can’t look weak—least of all, physically—this early in the game. Not if he wants to make it into the Military Police._

_Before Jean can come up a decision, the clanging of the bell from the tower reaches their ears, signaling supper time. Marco gets up automatically, smoothing his sheets over with one hand. Jean huffs and rolls off his own bunk to put on his shoes._

_/Fuck it. It’s not worth it./_

_“Yeah, well, at least I know which side of my chest my heart’s in,” Jean grumbles and it must catch Marco off guard because the freckled trainee laughs. It’s an honest laugh, and not one of derision at the poor kid with the buzz cut’s expense. More like he’s laughing because Jean has a comeback at all. /Get a load o’ this guy…/ Jean actually finds himself grinning before he can help himself._

_“Good one,” Marco says when he’s done._

_Jean shrugs a shoulder. “I try,” he grins at Marco who beams back. By now almost everyone is out the door. They can walk away and leave it like this. For all he knows, Marco’s already decided to switch bunks, not willing to put up with a bunkmate like Jean. Jean’s never been good with first impressions, but he sure as hell has nothing to gain from a kid born and raised in the bumfuck middle of nowhere Jinae anyway so why waste it on Marco?_

_Except the guy is actually still standing there expectantly like he’s waiting for Jean, like he means for them to go to the mess hall together. Like Jean didn’t just pull the biggest asshole move of all time on a poor, unsuspecting farm boy._

_/What a piece of work/, Jean thinks. Then he sighs. /Ah, what the hell…/ If anything, at least he won’t have to eat alone._

_“Start over?” Jean asks, holding out a hand._

_Marco grins and doesn’t miss a beat. He takes Jean’s hand in his. “Gladly.”_

* * *

Levi watches, unamused, as Jean takes off on his horse. He doesn’t try and stop him. The kid is no use to anyone like this. “Springer,” he calls the other scout. “Go after him and make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.”

“Yes, sir!”

Connie gives him a salute and jumps on his own mount to give chase. Levi watches long enough to make sure he actually has a chance of catching up before he turns back to the remaining scouts. All of them are looking past him to where Jean and Connie are disappearing into the night, except Armin who looks like he’s finally passed out.

“Oi!” He barks at them, his patience at an end. They have men and women out on perimeter when they should be resting. Sunrise is in a few hours and they still have a lot of ground to cover come morning. He and Hange haven’t slept a wink. He doesn’t have the time or energy to put up with his squad members gawking at him like goldfish. “I’m not going to ask you brats again. Who the hell is Marco Bott?”

The reaction is instant. Mikasa is glaring at him like she wants to cut his throat, nothing unusual there. But even Eren looks at him angrily. It’s a look Levi often sees, but it’s never been directed at him before. Sasha on the other hand looks like she’s about to burst into tears. Irritated, he looks to Hange for a cue, but judging by the look on the Commander’s face, she sees something he seems to be missing.

“Levi, don’t say it like that…” she says gently as she steps up to the young scouts. She takes in the looks on their faces and sighs. “He was in your class, wasn’t he?” Hange prods. “You trained together. He was your friend.”

Sasha nods and a tear finally slides down her cheek.

“He ranked number 7 in our class,” Mikasa says when no one else seems to want to talk. “Above average test scores. Excellent marksmanship. A tactician second only to Armin. He’d have gone up even higher if he didn’t hold himself back.”

This strikes a chord in Levi’s head, and Hange catches it, too. “He wouldn't use his full strength?” she asks carefully.

“It’s nothing like that!” Eren says, knowing what the Commander is getting at. He gets up from beside Armin’s sleeping form. His fists are clenched so tightly at his sides that his arms shake. “Mikasa sounds like she’s just reading his stats right off a piece of paper…” Eren looks up at them all and glares. “Marco saw the strengths and weaknesses in each of us. He helped us work well together, even if it sometimes meant taking a step back himself. He said if we all had the same goal, we had a better chance achieving it together than we ever could alone. Even if we didn’t get along in all other things!”

He swallows hard and his eyes shine brightly in the firelight. “How we’ve been a good team all this time in spite of all our differences…it’s not because of Shadis. It’s not even because of the Survey Corps. We’ve been a good team since well before graduation and it’s thanks to Marco!”

Eren turns to Levi and their eyes meet, like he’s daring the Corporal to say something. Levi’s impressed. These brats are a mess a lot of the time, but there’s no denying they work well together. Their coordination among themselves exceeds his expectations for their experience.

There’s a level of respect between them that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with authority, and a level of trust that surpasses just friendship. Did just one person teach them that?

“Everybody wanted to be in his squad.” Sasha’s voice was quivering and they all turn to look at her. She’s openly crying now. “We always said we’d survive if we were in Marco’s squad, but…” She trails off and Eren looks away.

Hange and Levi wait, but it doesn’t look like they can say anymore so they look to Mikasa. Her porcelain face is impassive as ever, but there’s a hint of sadness in her dark eyes.

“We lost him in the attack on Trost,” Mikasa says, answering their unasked question. “His death is the reason Jean joined the Survey Corps. Marco was Jean’s best friend.”

Hange nods and Levi is hard-pressed not to sigh out loud. They all know about loss. The Survey Corps has fatalities in numbers double that of the Military Police and Garrison combined. If they grieved for every single one of them, they would never stop mourning. But he’s not so callous as to dishonor the dead, especially not one so evidently close to these kids’ hearts. His squad members have come a long way, but they still haven’t mastered the ability to keep their emotions in check.

A skill like that comes with a price.

“I see,” Hange says, breaking the somber silence that’s settled over them. She offers them a small sympathetic smile. “Sounds like he would have been an asset to the Corps.”

Eren nods miserably. “He wanted to join the Military Police, but yeah…the Corps would have been lucky to have him.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Hange says, still smiling gently and stepping closer to Eren. Levi frowns. Something changes in the air, but the kids don’t notice. Nobody notices except Levi, and he only notices because he knows her like the back of his hand.

“But, Eren…” Hange says slowly, placing a hand on each of the Titan Shifter's shoulders when she reaches him—and there it is. The look in her face changes, and the sympathy in her voice evaporates. She’s got a wild look in her eyes, the same one that used to scare the shit out of Moblit. The one Erwin used to say was a good thing.

“Eren…did they ever find a body?”

* * *

_Connie leans back against the stone wall, exhausted. Sasha’s next to him, vomiting into the cobblestones and he can’t look, otherwise he’ll be joining right in. It’s been two days since Eren plugged the hole in Wall Rose. They haven’t seen or heard from him since. The Titans inside Trost District have all been wiped out by the canons and the Survey Corps, and it isn’t too long before the wagons start coming in. Wagons that start out empty, but eventually become piled high with dead soldiers’ bodies._

_“Man, this sucks…” Connie grouses. Every able-bodied individual has been asked to help in the clean-up. His hands are filthy and the fabric over his nose doesn’t help much. The whole city smells like death. What’s left of their class has scattered, spread out all across the city, picking up pieces of friends and strangers alike all day long. No one wants to talk. What on Earth can they say anyway?_

_Sasha wretches again and Connie feels a wave of nausea assail him at the sound. “Will you stop?!” He yells like it’s her fault._

_Sasha coughs and he expects her to get angry and for them to start bickering like they always do. But she just wipes her mouth with the back of a shaking hand and sulks. “Trying…” Her voice is already so hoarse._

_Someone comes jogging up to them and Connie’s relieved to see Jean. The other guy looks just as bad as they do, all pale and fatigued and covered in grime. His eyes are haunted, too. “Hey, has anyone seen Marco? We were supposed to stick together, but it looks like he bailed on me.”_

_“Marco wouldn’t bail on anyone if you paid him to,” Connie answers. “He probably just left you behind because you were slacking off again.”_

_It’s a pathetic attempt at humor, but Jean’s the first familiar face he’s seen in a few hours. Or the first familiar face he’s seen that wasn’t lifeless, twisted, and frozen in pain and terror, at least. He’ll force any semblance of normalcy where he can, but Jean doesn’t bite._

_“Like anyone could slack off in a situation like this…” the other cadet mutters glumly. “Look, we got separated a few days ago when he went looking for Reiner and the others. He’s probably still on the other side of the city with them. I just thought he’d be back by now. I haven’t seen him in a while.”_

_Connie shrugs. “He was fine right as Eren was sealing the breach. He’s probably helping out where he can. We’re all supposed to meet in the town square at sundown for the—” Funeral pyre. Connie doesn’t want to say it so he swallows and shrugs again. “I’m sure he’ll turn up then.”_

_Jean nods absently at that, but he still looks so disturbed, and he’s looking at Connie and Sasha like he isn’t sure where to start._

_“Just spit it out, Horse-face,” Sasha groans where she’s hunched over by the wall, evidently sensing it as well._

_Jean seems to deflate a little more if that’s even possible, but he looks them both in the eye. “I found Samuel one block over. Dead. Half of him bitten right off.”_

_Sasha gasps and straightens herself. “Samuel? But…but he was injured before we were even dispatched. His leg… he was supposed to stay in the infirmary! Why would he…” She and Connie look at each other in horror. They thought they had saved his life._

_Jean looks at them sadly. “Looks like he didn’t listen. I’m sorry.” Then Jean falters. “At first I…I thought it was…” Jean cuts himself off and shakes his head. “Never mind. Samuel’s been accounted for. Mina, Nac, and Mylius, too. If…if either of you see Marco around, tell him I’m looking for him, yeah?”_

_Connie nods, dumbstruck. Sasha does, too, before she wretches and vomits again. This time Connie joins her._

_Jean keeps looking._

* * *

“JEAN!”

Connie calls after his friend. They’re miles away from camp now and he’ll never admit it, but Connie’s starting to get scared. They shouldn’t be out this far by themselves making as much noise as they are, but Connie can’t stop shouting for his friend.

“JEAN, STOP!”

 _Bastard won’t fucking listen!_ He spurs his stallion on and means to call Jean again when the taller scout’s voice reaches him as he finally responds.

“Fucking leave me alone, Connie!” Jean yells back and Connie scowls. _Like I could!_

Connie keeps riding until he finally comes close enough to grab Jean’s horse by the bridle, pulling it back as hard as he can without endangering their lives. Fliss rears back and Jean roars, fighting to stay on the saddle.

“TOUCH HER AGAIN AND I’LL BREAK YOUR FACE!”

Connie falters at the look on the other scout’s face. Jean is livid, his tawny eyes flashing with anger. There are tear tracks down his cheeks, but there isn’t even a hint of sadness in his eyes. Just rage. He’s seen Jean angry before, but never like this. Jean ferociously smacks Connie’s hands away from his reins, and for a second Connie thinks Jean will punch him, too. He doesn’t, but Connie can tell he really wants to.

“I said leave me the fuck alone!” Jean yells in his face and Connie snaps and yells right back.

“I’m under orders to bring you back, you asshole!” He blocks Jean’s path with his horse when Jean tries to turn away. The shorter scout dismounts his horse and takes Jean’s reins tightly in his hands. He can’t run away now without causing Connie serious injuries and he hopes it’s enough to stop Jean’s rampage. “And even if I wasn’t, you think I’d let you run around like this all by yourself?! What the hell are you running from anyway?!”

“What am I…” Jean gapes, like he can’t believe what Connie just asked. Shock replaces the anger in his eyes for only a millisecond before the rage comes back full force. “What do you think Armin saw?! God damn it, Connie, are you still such a dumbass after all this time? Armin must have seen how Marco died!”

He tries to steer Fliss away from Connie, but Connie blocks the movement, grunting as he’s slammed onto the horse’s side and making Fliss whinny in distress. Jean quickly realizes she’ll actually kick at Connie if it becomes too much and he snarls, dismounting and pulling his horse away from his friend.

“Why else would he even bring him up after all this time?!” Jean continues to shout, still trying to get away. “You know it’s not a nightmare, it’s a fucking memory! That means Bertolt—FUCK!” He leaves Fliss and walks away agitatedly, sticking his hands in his hair and pulling at it in frustration. He turns his back on Connie like he can’t stand the sight of him.

Connie’s mind reels as he tries to keep up. “Yeah? Well, I hate to break it to you, but Bertolt’s done a lot worse! You’re angry that it was Bertolt; I get that! But you know what?! You’re even angrier because all this time, you had no idea how Marco died and it was _killing_ you! It still is!”

_He died, and nobody was there to see it._

Jean suddenly freezes where he stands before he turns around to look at Connie with a wild look in his eyes. Connie gulps. The look on Jean’s face…Connie knows that look. Sasha once told him that a wild animal is most dangerous when it’s trapped and backed up into a corner. That’s what he’s doing with Jean now, backing him up into a corner with no way out, confronting him about the ghost that's been haunting the other man since the attack on Trost.

No one’s pushed Jean this far, not about Marco. Because Marco’s death hit _all_ of them hard, and it hit Jean the hardest. Losing Marco _changed_ Jean in a way three years of military training couldn’t. It’s a testament to how much the freckled brunette meant to Jean. Connie needs to tread carefully, because friend or no, Jean is a threat like this. 

What did Sasha tell him about calming down wild horses? Be gentle, but firm. Don’t break eye contact or make any sudden movements. _Damn it, Sasha, this better work._

“Look,” he starts, putting his hands out where Jean can see them. “I know I’m not one of the best and brightest, but I do know that not knowing is worse. It _is_ , Jean,” he maintains when Jean actually starts to growl. “Not knowing…never being sure…”

Oh, shit, Connie’s ghosts are coming out, too.

“I’ve been there, all right?” He continues. His thoughts flash back to his village and his family briefly, but he slams that door shut. This isn’t about him. “We tell ourselves that maybe it wasn’t so bad, maybe it was quick. Maybe they didn’t even see it coming! But after a while you start to imagine things. What if it was painful? What if it was slow? What if they suffered? It’s enough to make you sick!”

It’s making Connie sick right now, thinking it had been Bertolt all along.

Jean’s eyes are flickering in the moonlight and Connie struggles to keep going. He wants to stop. This is hurting him, too. But his friends were strong for him when he needed them a year ago and he hasn’t forgotten that.

“We owe it to them, Jean!” he shouts. His eyes are burning, but he refuses to cry. “To feel their pain, their fear. To have _some_ idea of how they felt and then live with that pain for the rest of our lives! If you’re right about what Armin saw then you finally have the chance to know for sure! So take it! Refusing to know is the coward’s way out, and Marco deserves better!”

Connie’s next words are caught in his throat when Jean suddenly grabs him by his arms. Oh, fuck. This is it. He shuts his eyes tight, waiting for the blow to come.

It never does.

Connie opens his eyes carefully and finds Jean’s face inches from his own.

“What Marco deserves,” Jeans starts shakily. “Is to still be here with us right here, right now.” _Sleeping on a bedroll by the campfire, mapping out the shoreline, fixing dinner because whoever was supposed to be in charge screwed it up. Laughing with Connie and Sasha, training with Armin and Mikasa, tearing Jean and Eren apart when they fight._

Jean’s looking Connie right in the eye. The wildness in them is gone now. They’re still overly bright, like Jean might still cry any second, but they’ve got a steely clarity to them that wasn’t there a moment ago. Connie will take what he can get.

“Y-yeah,” the shorter scout answers, relieved. Looks like Sasha taught him well. “Yeah, I know that, Jean.”

 _But we can’t give it to him._ It goes unsaid.

The other scout nods slowly and then hangs his head as he lets Connie go. “Sorry I yelled at you and made you run after me this far.”

Connie bites back a sigh of relief and just shrugs. “Like I said, I was under orders. And, well, it’s what friends do.” He looks Jean straight in the face and the taller scout looks away self-consciously.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Connie takes a look at Jean searchingly for a moment. The fuse has apparently fizzled out. He still looks like going back to camp is the last thing he wants to do, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to run off again. They’re still way out in the open, and the moon is getting pretty low in the sky. They’ve been gone too long. They have to get back, whether Jean’s ready or not. Jean’s never going to be ready anyway.

Connie reaches out to the two horses that are still waiting for them and takes their bridles. He leads Fliss back to Jean and puts her reins in his hand.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “The sun will be up soon. We need to go, Horse-face.”

Jean snorts at the nickname. “Whatever you say, Blockhead.”

The both swing up into their saddles at the same time and Jean looks across the plain in the direction of the camp apprehensively. Connie sees his struggle and he keeps a hand on Fliss’s reins.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I get there,” Jean admits.

“Listen, whatever is waiting for us back there, we’ll face it together,” he tells Jean firmly. _No matter how bad or painful it is,_ he thinks to himself. “You, me, Sasha, Eren, and Mikasa. All of us together. I mean it.”

Jean stares at him thoughtfully for a long moment before he nudges Fliss to start moving. Connie follows suit. “Lemme guess. It’s what friends do?” Jean asks softly as their horses start to trot back to camp.

Connie nods and finally lets go of Fliss’s reins. “Yeah, Jean. It is.”

* * *

“They’re back.”

Eren looks up sharply when Mikasa speaks. Sure enough, Connie and Jean walk into the light of the campfire on their horses. The sky behind them is already turning into a light gray, the stars almost out of sight.

Sasha is on them as soon as they dismount. “What took you two so long?!” She cries, punching Jean hard in the arm. She’d been near-inconsolable since they took off and they could barely stop her from going after them herself.

The sandy-haired scout winces and rubs the sore spot. “Ow, geez, calm down, Potato Girl. We’re back, aren’t we?” He at least has the decency to look abashed.

Sasha scowls and punches Connie, too, who flinches, but otherwise takes it without complaint.

The rest of them stand up when they draw near and Eren has half a mind to punch Jean himself, but he checks the impulse. They don’t need this right now.

“Got it out of your system?” Levi drawls, crossing his arms over his chest. He still looks royally pissed.

Jean flushes and straightens into a salute. “My apologies, Captain. It won’t happen again!”

Levi waves him off and, to their surprise, doesn’t even bother with a punishment. “Well, hurry up then. We’ve wasted enough time.”

Levi motions for them all to follow him and they quickly obey. Confused, Jean looks to Eren who gives a disapproving shake of his head and glares. He gives Jean the chance to catch up to him before he elbows the taller scout in the gut.

“What the hell were you thinking, Horse-face,” he growls under his breath.

“Don’t even start, Yeager,” Jean mumbles back without much bite. For some reason, this irritates Eren even more. The wait for Jean and Connie to get back had been tense and unbearable. The least Jean can do is take responsibility for his actions.

“We needed you back there and you bolted. Don’t act like that’s okay.”

In fact, it was unforgivable to Eren. He and Mikasa had taken Armin to rest in the tent that served as a temporary command post under Commander Hange’s orders. When they were alone, the Commander had asked all these questions Eren couldn’t answer, mostly about the attack on Trost. But Eren had been in his Titan form for most of that battle, and then had been detained right after sealing the breach in Wall Rose. It was all just a blur to him, and Mikasa didn’t know any more than he did because she had been right there with him during the worst of it.

The Commander hadn’t brought up what Armin had written down at all, and all attempts to discuss it were shut down immediately. They were dismissed without further instructions and he and Mikasa have been spending that time trying to calm Sasha down under the watchful eye of their Captain. As far as they know, Armin hasn’t woken up yet, and Eren’s going mad wondering where Marco fits into all this. It’s all been an unnecessary strain on them, and Eren feels like it’s Jean’s fault for taking off.

Jean frowns at him as they continue to walk. “You guys are the dream experts. What the hell do you need me for?”

“They have a lot of questions, Jean. Questions that…” Eren struggles to find a way to say it. “Questions only you can answer, I think.”

This clearly makes Jean nervous, but Eren doesn’t have it in him to be reassuring. He’s nervous, too, as they near the Command Post. _The questions Commander Hange asked…_

“What kind of questions?” Jean asks, but before Eren can answer him, Levi stops and throws the flap of the tent aside for them to enter. There’s movement inside as Commander Hange turns to them from where she’s standing on one corner…talking to Armin.

Eren gasps, relieved to see that his friend is awake. Armin still looks a little shaken, but seems otherwise fine for the most part. There are sheets of paper scattered all around him, Eren notices, all bearing the blond’s handwriting. _Shit, it looks like he wrote a whole book while we were gone._

Jean seems to notice, too, because Eren can feel him hesitate and then shrink back from the group. Connie and Sasha are quick to flank him and make him stay put, though, and Eren swears he’ll shift into his Titan Form and keep Jean from running again if he has to.

“Ah, good.” Commander Hange smiles at them when they enter and stand at attention. Her face is especially soft when she looks at Jean, like he didn’t almost threaten her a few hours ago.  “You’re all here.”

Levi steps up from behind the group to join her and they share a meaningful look before addressing the scouts.

“I know you have your questions,” she says. “And believe me, we have a lot of our own as well. This is a delicate matter and it concerns a person only the six of you know. Needless to say, what we discuss here this morning never leaves this tent. Understood?”

They all salute with their fists over their hearts and then Commander Hange turns to Armin. “Where do we start, Armin?” she says gently and the blond startles and looks up at her before he turns to his friends. His gaze wavers when he sees Jean and he ducks his head, unsure of himself.

“I…I don’t know…I…”

“Take your time, Armin,” Mikasa says and Eren nods, despite the anxiety gnawing at him.

“Yeah, we’re right here.”

The blond bites his lip and starts to shake. The pages he’s written start to wrinkle in his hands from how tightly he’s holding them, but he’s clearly at a loss as to where to start.

To their surprise, it’s Jean who speaks first. “I just have one question, Armin,” he says seriously and the blond looks up at him. Jean stares back at him without emotion. “Was it just Bertolt or was it all three of them?”

The tension goes up a notch and all their faces turn grim. Eren’s shocked himself. He hadn’t made the direct connection between Marco’s death being in Bertolt’s memories until now. Eren had only assumed it was something Bertolt must have witnessed, not something he _did_. But of course Jean, who’s always keener than anyone gives him credit for, would. Something tightens inside Eren’s chest and he looks at Armin with wide eyes, dreading the answer.

“All three of them,” Armin replies, his voice thin, and Eren stiffens and starts to shake, feeling rage boil inside him. Marco, all by himself against three Titan Shifters. He never stood a chance.

“Oh, man…” Connie says shakily and Sasha stifles a sob. This is even harder than they initially thought it would be.

“Okay…” Jean nods absently. His voice shakes only a little. “I think… I think that’s all we need to know.”

This seems to snaps Armin out of it. “No, Jean. You need to know how it happened.”

Jean’s eyes widen and he shakes his head. “No, I don’t.”

“Jean—”

“I said I don’t want to know!”

“YOU HAVE TO KNOW!!!”

They’re all taken aback when Armin shouts, his blue eyes blazing. Commander Hange and Levi exchange a quick glance, but otherwise don’t say anything.

Jean stares at the blond, stunned, before he recovers. “Bullshit,” he says and then looks at the two officers watching them. “You’ve kept a lot of things from us since the beginning, and that cost a lot of good people their lives.”

Connie puts a hand on his shoulder to calm him down, but Jean shrugs it off.

“Jean, we talked about this,” Connie pleads, but Jean ignores him and turns back to Armin.

“This seems inconsequential compared to everything else, doesn’t it?” He asks. “We know who was behind it, but it’s not like we can do anything about it now! You wanna tell me how my best friend died? How none of us was there when he needed us most? Wasn’t losing him punishment enough?!”

Jean’s voice is raw with pain and Eren shuts his eyes to stop his own tears from falling. He wasn’t there, not even during the funeral pyres that burned for hours with more than half of his graduating class on them. Jean, Sasha, and Connie are the only ones here that were, and all three of them look like they’re suddenly fifteen again, wondering what the hell they had gotten themselves into. Eren didn’t even find out who made it and who didn’t until a week after the attack.

“It’s been a year,” Jean continues hoarsely. “A whole God damned year. Bertolt’s dead, Reiner’s across the ocean, and we can’t get to Annie in that crystal! After everything we’ve been through, what the hell does it change?” He asks Armin. He asks the others, too. None of them has an answer.

Slowly, very slowly, Eren reaches out and puts a hand on Jean’s shoulder. Jean looks back at him, surprised. They don’t do this, not the two of them—not for each other—but Eren can’t stop himself.

“Oi…it’s okay,” Eren tells him. “It’s okay.”

Jean’s eyes mist over and he looks away.

No one says anything for a while. Levi looks like he wants to, but Hange stops him with a glare. The silence is deafening until with what sounds like a whimper, Sasha moves closer to Jean and takes one of his arms in hers, offering both comfort and an apology as she says very softly: “I…I want to know…”

Connie nods and places a hand on Jean’s other shoulder, using his other hand to dry his own eyes. “Yeah, me, too.”

Mikasa looks to Eren before she nods herself. “Tell us.”

None of them are running away from this. In the middle of it all, Jean looks at each of them in horror before he ducks his head and takes a deep, shuddering breath. They all tighten their hold on him.

“You guys…” Armin’s crying now, too, clutching what he’s written close to his chest.

“It changes everything…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliff hanger, but it was getting long! Please tell me what you think of it so far?
> 
> In the next chapter: Armin finally lets the ax fall, and the truth is even harder to take than they thought it would be.
> 
> Also, A QUESTION FOR YOU, DEAR READER: I'm curious to know if you would prefer Levi/Eren or Levi/Hange? I've got Levi walking the tightrope between the two and I just need a little nudge to know where he's going. ^^


	4. The Painful Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco, you were really at the wrong place at the wrong time...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS for Manga Chapter 77! 
> 
> Flashback heavy with shifting POVs among different characters.
> 
> And sorry, I know those who commented in the previous chapter were hoping for some Levi/Hange and I really was going to go for that, but this thing turned itself to Levi/Eren (because apparently my heart wants Moblit/Hange). I put the character development for both Levi and Hange together though so I hope that will suffice. :)

_He knew it. He knew one of them should have been on the lookout._

_“Hey, you two…what in the world are you talking about?”_

_Bertolt freezes in place. Slowly, he turns to look at Marco who’s staring first at him and then at Reiner in concern. Bertolt glances swiftly at his accomplice, but the blond doesn’t look at him. Reiner’s piercing gaze is glued to the freckled cadet, whose arrival they’ve somehow completely missed. The intensity in Reiner’s pale eyes is frightening and Bertolt quickly feels himself start to sweat. /No, not Marco/, he thinks. /No, no, no, no, no, not Marco…/_

_“What do you mean, Reiner?” The shorter brunette pushes. God, he actually takes a step even closer. “‘My titan’?” Marco frowns at the blond and then turns back to Bertolt. His eyebrows are drawn together. He looks so confused, not even the least bit suspicious. “What hole did you work so hard to make, Bertolt?”_

_“Marco…” Bertolt says slowly, his voice thin with disbelief. What kind of person overhears something like that and doesn’t go speeding in the opposite direction?_

_“That was a joke,” Reiner says and it’s so unconvincing, it makes him sick. A joke? That’s all Reiner can come up with? Is he for real?_

_He can see the exact moment the confusion in the younger cadet’s face changes to doubt, the exact moment the fear starts to trickle in. “Have you two gone nuts?” Marco shouts at them. From the corner of his eye, Bertolt can see Reiner’s hand slowly slide down to the hilt of his sword. The taller brunette follows suit, but his hands are shaking like mad. Gods, were they really going to do this? To Marco?_

_He doesn’t hear what Marco says next as the other cadet starts to ramble nervously. His thoughts are blocked out by white noise. He feels disconnected, like he can’t feel his own limbs. They’ve already seen hundreds of people die—bodies ripped from the air, heads crushed like overripe watermelons, their screams cut short in their throats. What’s one more death? One more member of this vile race extinguished?_

_Except that Marco has been the kindest person Bertolt’s ever met on either side of the ocean, the most honest and helpful. He’s a good man, a good friend. He talked with them, trained with them, laughed with them. But that shouldn’t matter because half of their graduating class is probably already dead by now. That shouldn’t matter because this race will be extinguished. Marleyans will write songs and stories about this victory, their people would be forgiven, and their families can finally leave the Internment Zone as true Marleyans. /That’s/ what matters. That’s what they worked so hard for. That’s why they’re here._

_So why can’t Bertolt move?_

_Because he and Reiner have never actually killed anyone themselves before._

_Before he knows it Marco is turning to leave, leaping off the rooftop in haste._

_“Damn it!” Reiner swears and darts forward, and Bertolt follows him on instinct. He draws his swords without thinking. He’ll stab Marco right through the heart! Slit his throat! Break his neck! Anything to stop him from compromising this mission!_

_Then his brain finally catches up with him and he stops._

_“Reiner!” He cries out and the blond stops, too. Reiner’s already deployed his anchors to the next building. He’s about to launch himself into the air, but he looks back at the sound of Bertolt’s voice._

_“We can’t!” Bertolts all but pleads and Reiner’s eyes waver with anguish. Not Marco, not Marco… If they had to kill anyone with their own two hands why did it have to be Marco?_

_Then the blond blinks and it’s gone, replaced with steely glare that stops any more protests Bertolt wants to make in his throat._

_“We have to,” Reiner says with finality before he launches himself after the freckled cadet._

_They catch up with Marco in no time and for a moment Bertolt wonders what they’re going to do exactly…until Reiner spins in the air to gather momentum and then rams right into Marco from above._

_“Reiner?!” The blond’s recklessness scares him and he glances around quickly to make sure there’s no one else around. The two cadets go down hard and the roof tiles shatter under their combined weight. By the time Bertolt gets there, Reiner’s got one of Marco’s arms twisted behind his back._

_“Reiner! What are you—” The freckled cadet cries out in pain when Reiner wrenches his arm back just shy of dislocating it entirely. “Reiner…” Marco gasps pitifully, looking back at them. “This is all a joke, right?”_

_Bertolt can’t see Reiner’s face from where he’s standing, but he can imagine the look in his eyes when Marco pales. “No,” Reiner answers darkly. “Marco…you’ve always been good at picking up on things so I can’t let you go.”_

_Marco’s brown eyes widen and he starts struggling anew. He takes a deep breath, no doubt to scream for help, but Reiner brutally clamps a hand over his mouth before he can get more than half a word out._

_This is wrong, Bertolt thinks as he watches them struggle. Why hasn’t Reiner slit his throat yet? Why make Marco suffer? Every second they waste increases the risk of getting caught._

_What’s Reiner waiting for?_

* * *

Sasha doesn’t want to cry anymore. She feels like she’s cried enough tears to fill the ocean since she left her home to become a soldier. But she can’t stop, not with what Armin’s telling them. They’re all seated around a table now, facing each other. There’s not a dry eye among her friends, and that only makes her feel worse.

_Reiner knocked Marco right out of the air then held him down with a hand over his mouth to keep him from shouting for help. Then Annie arrived. There was a Titan, too. Annie took Marco’s gear and weapons so he wouldn’t be able to get away. They left him for dead on that rooftop. They had to make sure it wouldn’t look like the murder it was._

Armin goes on about how it happened in further detail and the image is hard for her to stomach. She had already come to terms with losing the Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie she thought she knew during their trainee days, but hearing this now blackens even the fondest memories she’s ever had of them.

She can see it clearly in her head somehow. The four of them on a rooftop with dust, smoke, and blood all around them. Bertolt standing guard, Annie hastily removing Marco’s gear. Reiner holding Marco down with ease even as the poor squad leader cried for them to stop.

Marco’s last moments in his short life were spent begging those he thought were his friends not to leave him. One of the last things he saw was their backs turned to him as they left him to die.

Sasha balls her hands into fists. _How cruel… how cold-hearted and cruel..._

Connie is sitting beside her, shaking with his head in his hands. They can’t believe they cried when they lopped half of Reiner’s head off. They can’t believe they felt remorse when Bertolt screamed for them to save him.

The three Titan Shifters have killed more people than they will ever be able to count, but somehow finding out that those three culprits did this in their human forms fresh out of graduation after they all ate, slept, bled, and cried under the same roof for three years makes this unforgivable.

 _Marco grew me a garden of vegetables behind the barracks_ , she remembers. _He said he wouldn’t help me steal meat, but he could at least provide the things I needed to make it delicious when I stole it anyway._

 “I…”

She looks up at the sound of Jean’s voice. The sandy-haired scout looks awful, like he’s on the verge of collapsing. She’s sure she looks just as bad, but Jean, who’s usually so brash and self-assured, looks so lost. It’s heartbreaking.

“I let him go,” Jean tells them shakily, his face white. “When they finally ordered a charge to defend Eren in Trost…”

_“Marco!” Jean skids to a halt when he sees the other cadet deploy his anchors in the direction opposite of where they‘re supposed to go. “Where the hell are you going?! That’s the wrong way!”_

_Marco stops himself just as he’s about to launch off the rooftop they’re still on, but he doesn’t retract his lines. “I saw Reiner and Bertolt head East,” the freckled cadet says. “There must be Titans coming from that direction, too! They’ll need back-up!”_

_There are Titans coming from /every/ direction, Jean thinks. All headed for Eren! “You’re one of the only squad leaders left, you jack ass!” He yells in a panic. Marco can’t leave him now! Jean may be the one throwing the orders around, but he gets his cues from Marco! “Who the hell’s gonna lead this group if something goes wrong?!”_

_Marco doesn’t even hesitate. “Who do you think?” He yells back, sternly. He’s literally seconds from leaving and Jean clearly can’t stop him._

_“Marco, I can’t—”_

_“JEAN!” Marco finally shouts. His brown eyes blaze authority, leaving no room for discussion, and Jean’s heart leaps in his throat. “You’ve /got/ this! Now go regroup with your squad! They’re counting on you!”_

_“DAMN IT! I SAID WAIT!” Jean cries desperately, but Marco doesn’t listen. There’s a loud hiss of gas as Marco’s 3DMG propels him into the air. Without stopping, Marco launches anchor after anchor, swinging East and away from the rest of Jean’s squad._

_He looks back at Jean one last time to make sure he’s not following him, and then just like that, Marco’s gone._

That was the last time Jean ever saw him.

Jean grits his teeth and starts shaking. “I let him head straight for those bastards.”

Sasha reaches out to him and takes one of his hands in hers. It’s as cold as ice. “You didn’t know, Jean,” she tells him. “There was no way you could have known.”

“No way you could have stopped him either,” Connie says, turning to Jean. “I was there. I saw him go, too. He wouldn’t listen when you asked him to stay so I…” He seems to shudder then and goes back to holding his head in his hands. “I sent Annie after him to back him up!”

Sasha can’t believe what she’s hearing. “You…you guys are kidding me, right?” She asks them incredulously. She looks between Jean and Connie. “You make it sound like you’re responsible. What…what’s the matter with you two?! How can you blame yourselves?!”

 _That’s like blaming Eren for us having to protect him that day_ , she thinks in horror.

“Sasha’s right,” Commander Hange says. She looks at them all sadly. “Don’t do this to yourselves.”

BAM! They all jump when Eren slams his fist on the table. “Those bastards… So that’s how it happened?” He asks angrily, turning to Armin. "They left him stranded and defenseless for that Titan to… did those fuckers even stay and watch?! Watch what they did to Marco?!”

They all turn to Armin, who’s watching them all tensely. Despite her grief, Sasha frowns at the look on his face, her instincts telling her that something’s off. The blond looks exhausted and clearly traumatized. Anyone would be. It’s bad enough for them to hear it from him, but Armin _saw_ it all clearly in his nightmare.

But there’s something more.

Armin looks afraid.

“Only Bertolt stayed,” he says slowly, looking at them all nervously. He turns to look at Hange who gives him a solemn nod before he turns back to them. The pages he’s written rustle in his shaky grasp. “That’s why only Bertolt knew what happened next.”

* * *

  _“Shit!” Reiner curses, looking behind them. “There are others coming this way!”_

_Bertolt turns, too, and sees the blur of several soldiers leaping over the rooftops in formation about a mile away and coming in fast. They’re not necessarily headed for them, but they would certainly pass through and catch them._

_“Too many to take out without making it look suspicious,” Annie supplies quickly. “And that Titan isn’t getting here fast enough.”_

_“What do we do?!” Bertolt panics. Marco is still alive, disoriented and in tears on the rooftop they left him on, too stunned from the last blow to his head to move. The Titan is still a good thirty meters from him and moving slowly. If these soldiers find him now, they could take out the Titan and rescue the cadet, and then Marco could tell them everything he just heard._

_/We should’ve killed him when we had the chance!/ Bertolt thinks. /Forget leaving it to a Titan! How would anyone be able to tell one murder from the rest of the carnage today anyway?/ But it’s too late. If they do it now, they’ll risk getting caught by either the Titan or the soldiers heading their way, and shifting into their Titan forms when they still knew so little about Eren could compromise their entire mission!_

_/Marco, you were really in the wrong place at the wrong time!/_

_Reiner curses again before turning to Bertolt. “Bertolt, stay until it’s done. Annie and I will intercept them and lead them away.”_

_Annie seems to hesitate at that. Reiner catches it and glares at her._

_“Don’t make me repeat what I just yelled at you back there!” He shouts and Annie scowls. She returns his glare full force, her blue eyes glowering, before she sighs and deploys an anchor to a building a few meters away. “Well?” She says archly. “What are you waiting for?”_

_And then she’s gone, speeding toward the other soldiers. Reiner deploys his own lines, but looks back at Bertolt before he leaves. “We’ll tell them you have a squad with you, dealing with this Titan. Then we’ll lead them in a different direction.” Bertolt nods, but the blond grabs his arm and gives it a firm squeeze. “Hey,” he says darkly. “Can you do this, Bertolt? I’m relying on you.”_

_Reiner’s eyes grow stormy and Bertolt swallows. “Of course,” he answers. “I’m a Warrior just like you. I’ll catch up as soon as Marco’s dead.”_

_Reiner nods once and then takes off after Annie. Bertolt quickly makes a show of heading towards the incoming Titan for the benefit of the other soldiers who can see him but not the other cadet still lying on the broken rooftop below. Marco still hasn’t moved at all, apart from quivering with the force of his sobs. Reiner must have cracked his skull earlier._

_Bertolt lands on a rooftop a safe distance away and hides himself from view. The Titan has finally reached Marco and it grabs him around his middle, lifting him up in its crushing grip. That’s when Marco starts to scream._

_Bertolt thought the younger cadet’s pleas earlier were awful to hear, but this…this is /horrible/. More horrifying than he ever thought it would be, watching someone he knew had to die for the success of their mission struggling in the hands of a Titan. Marco’s screams are so loud, it’s a wonder nobody hears them and comes rushing to his aid. The freckled cadet thrashes in the Titan’s grip, flailing with his free arm and leg, but it’s hopeless. Can’t Marco see that? Why is he still fighting? He doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell._

_/Just die…just die already.../ Bertolt thinks, feeling his stomach roil. It’s a mantra that he repeats in his head to drown out Marco’s cries. /Die, Marco. Just die./_

_Marco reaches out and pushes at the Titan’s mouth with his arm and leg in a last ditch effort to keep from being devoured, turning his face away from its gaping maw with tears in his eyes._

_Bertolt feels his own tears start to fall. /It’ll be over soon/, he thinks. /It’ll all be over soon/._

_/JUST. DIE./_

_“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”_

_Bertolt feels like he’s watching it in slow-motion. The Titan’s teeth crunch hard into Marco’s right half, tearing a large chunk of him from his head down to his chest clean off. Blood, bone and sinew spray into the air, and Marco goes limp in the Titan’s grasp, like a puppet cut from its strings. His scream becomes a wet rattle in his throat that’s sickening to hear. Fresh blood streams down from the gaping wound, soaking what’s left of his uniform, and the light in the one remaining brown eye goes out._

_And then it happens._

_There’s no flash of light, no crash of thunder._

_Marco’s right side regenerates in seconds and doesn’t stop growing. The rest of him starts growing, too; massive cords of muscle, tendons, and skin winding fluidly around bone, engulfing the other cadet completely._

_Bertolt gasps. /No way…Marco’s a…he’s…Marco, too?!/_

_He throws his arms to shield his face as clouds of hot steam blow over him. He’s forced to jump away when it gets too hot and he frantically looks around, but there’s no one there._

_“Reiner!!!! Annie!!!!” He calls out, but of course he gets no response. They’re long gone by now, leading the other soldiers far from this position so they wouldn’t get caught. It’s just him, alone with this revelation, faced with this unforeseen, impossible scenario._

_What on Earth is he supposed to do?_

_/Reiner is going to kill me/, Bertolt thinks, and his heart fills with dread as in front of him, within the cloud of steam, a massive shadow starts to move._

* * *

“Marco didn’t die in Trost. He transformed into a Titan. He was a Titan shifter,” Armin says with finality. It’s a relief to finally let the ax fall, even if it does make all his friends look like they’re going to pass out. He can’t blame them. He passed out himself earlier from the psychological strain.

They’re all staring at him, speechless, and he wishes there was a way to make this easier, but there isn’t. Marco Bott, who they all thought perished in Trost right out of training, was a Titan Shifter. He turns to Captain Levi who gives him a respectful nod, like he’s proud of him for getting through all that in one piece. Armin honestly didn’t think he could.

His friends are in total disbelief. There are no tears this time, but this isn’t any easier for them to take in. Armin wishes they would say something, start asking questions even, but it looks like they just don’t know where to start.

“Tell them the rest, Arlert,” Levi instructs flatly and Armin waits for Hange’s assent before taking a deep breath.

“Bertolt couldn’t kill him,” he continues. “He knew he had to get Marco back to Marley to find out what kind of abilities his Titan had. But he was alone at that point so there wasn’t much he could do since he couldn’t shift to his Titan Form again so soon...”

He explains it to them as best as he can from what he can remember. He can still see it all clearly in his head.

While Marco was distracted with the Titan that had just tried to devour him, Bertolt got behind him. As soon as the Titan was dead, he cut Marco free of his Titan form because he knew leaving him in there would risk Marco getting killed by either Titans or other soldiers. But there was nowhere else he could go, no one else he could turn to. He had no idea where Annie and Reiner were or when they’d be back so he did the only thing he could think of, something that never failed him before.

Bertolt went over the wall, and he took Marco with him.

They had been planning the attack on Trost for months so by then he had gone over the wall lots of times; he knew the fastest way to the walls and which parts were relatively unguarded. That’s how he got in and out so fast when he turned into the Colossal Titan that day. Bertolt thought he could hold Marco captive somewhere until the dust settled over Trost and they could figure out what to do.

Only, he didn’t count on Marco regaining consciousness so soon. But Marco did, right as Bertolt scaled Wall Rose. They fought hand to hand right on the wall because Marco was weaponless and because Bertolt couldn’t risk accidentally killing him.

“I don’t think Marco even realized what happened…” Armin says, remembering the look on Marco’s face as seen by Bertolt. He looked so scared, desperately struggling against the taller brunette atop the Wall. “I think all he could think of was that his friends were trying to kill him and the rest of mankind.”

In the end, Marco fell off the edge and Bertolt wasn’t fast enough to catch him. He ended up transforming again on the other side of Wall Rose, probably to keep from getting killed in the fall. And then he ran off as a Titan. That was the last Bertolt ever saw of him.

“Bertolt couldn’t tell Annie or Reiner,” Armin explains. “Reiner would never have trusted him again, and his mistake might have even sealed his fate if they ever made it back to Marley. So Bertolt joined the scouts. He was always keeping an eye out for any sign of Marco.”

Armin sighs as he finishes, drying his eyes with the back of his hand. _That’s it_ , he tells himself. That’s the end of it. He smooths his hands over the notes he’s written. The silence that settles over them is almost deafening, but after all that, Armin appreciates it, if only so he can catch his breath. It’s like the calm before the storm.

He isn’t wrong.

“Kirstein…” Levi looks at Jean with a steely glint in his blue eyes. “Did you know?”

Armin stiffens and everybody else turns to Jean who’s sitting as still as a statue, his face as white as marble. Everyone goes stock still, horror-struck.

“How…how can you even ask that?!” Sasha cries when Jean can’t answer the question. She’s glaring at Levi. It’s not like her to purposely stand up to authority, but what is Levi implying? “If you saw his face…if you saw his face that night…” She looks at the sandy-haired scout and squeezes the hand she still hasn’t let go of from earlier. “Jean, you had no idea, right? Right?!”

They all stare hard at Jean until finally he gives a barely perceptible shake of his head.

“I didn’t think so,” the Corporal says coolly. “But it doesn’t hurt to ask.” He and Hange step closer from where they’ve been hovering over the perturbed scouts to take their seats at the head of the table.

“I know this is difficult,” Hange starts, massaging her temples as she addresses them. “But there is so much we don’t know about this situation.” She turns to Armin and asks the question that’s no doubt in everyone’s mind. “Armin, do you think he’s one of them? An Eldian from across the ocean with the power of one of Ymir’s Titans?”

Armin frowns and thinks. “I don’t have much to go on, but it doesn’t feel like it. If Marco had been sent from Marley, he could have easily deduced the plot just from what he overheard since he would have already known about Titan Shifters and the mission to break the walls. They would have had the same goal, wouldn’t they? He could have joined them.”

It makes sense. Even if they had been sent here on separate missions, each unaware of the other, they would have combined forces as warriors for Marley once the truth was found out.

“As for the Titan’s powers, I can’t be sure.”

Mikasa hums thoughtfully, her dark eyes taking on a calculating glint. Out of all of them, she’s the one who showed the least emotion, but Armin can tell she’s a little shaken, too. “This brings up so many questions,” she says. “If he’s not one of them then why is Marco a Titan Shifter?”

Armin glances at Eren who quickly understands the look in his eyes.

“Maybe he didn’t know, like I didn’t know until Trost,” Eren says quietly, his voice quivering. Armin knows he’s still trying to wrap his head around what they’ve all just found out. “My father is the only one we know of, after all, but maybe he’s not the only one who made it to the Walls from here. Maybe someone from another time did.”

Hange heaves a tired sigh. She’s flipping over her own notes from the conversation absently. “Or maybe there’s more the previous King and his followers were hiding.”

As always, they have nothing but questions. There are too many uncertainties. They don’t even know which angle to approach from.

From where he’s sitting between Sasha and Connie, Jean finally makes a sound, clearing his throat softly. Armin turns to look at him patiently. He knew Jean would have the hardest time with this. “Armin, do you think he’s still alive? Right now?” Jean asks, and Armin knows the other scout is trying so hard not to sound hopeful, that Jean is trying to pass it off as standard question to ask in this situation.

“I’m not…I…” Armin doesn’t know what to say. He can’t deny that he hopes against all hope that that’s the case, but Jean said it himself…it’s been a whole year…

As if the Corporal read his mind, Levi sighs and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t bet on it, Kirstein.”

Everyone turns to Levi, aghast, and the Corporal holds a hand up when Hange gives him a disapproving look.

“A number of things could have happened,” he says. He’s clearly trying his best not to make it sound harsh, but it has to be said. “He could have been devoured by Titans as soon as he hit the ground if they could sense what he truly was. If he transformed into a human after that he would have been in the middle of Titan territory; he’d be dead in minutes. For all we know the Beast Titan could have gotten its hands on him without Bertolt or Reiner’s knowledge.” He looks at Jean with what passes for compassion by Levi’s standards in his eyes. “I don’t want you getting your hopes up.”

_We’ve been let down too many times before._

Jean swallows thickly and nods, leaning back into his chair. “So we’re writing him off again. Just like that, huh?”

“Jean, it would explain why he hasn’t come back.”

Everyone turns sharply to Mikasa.

“O-oi, Mikasa!” Eren starts, flabbergasted. “We don’t even know anything for sure yet!”

“Eren,” the dark-haired girl looks seriously at the Titan Shifter. “Marco would never turn deserter. If he could come back, he would have.”

The truth of her statement stings, and the grief is almost palpable. Trust Mikasa to put everything into perspective with just a few words. It feels like Marco’s just died all over again.

“You said it would change everything, Armin,” Jean says softly, looking up at the blond from across the table with the most heartrending gaze Armin has ever seen in his tawny eyes. “It doesn’t change anything at all.”

All his friends look away sadly and Armin feels guilt consume him. He doesn’t want to be responsible for this. He never meant to give them the hope that Marco was still alive only to take it away from them. He knew early on that it wasn’t a hope they wanted to entertain in the first place; the prospect that their friend could still be alive is slim at best, practically next to impossible. He can’t blame them for feeling what they do, but when he said it would change everything, he didn’t mean Marco’s fate.

“It means that there are more Titan Shifters behind the Walls that we don’t know about, Jean, and that not all of them are with the Marleyans,” Commander Hange says and Armin almost cries from relief. He couldn’t have explained it better, not with all their emotions running wild.

“Th-that’s right, Jean,” Armin tries again. They’re losing the big picture here. “If we can find them…if they’d stand with us like Eren and I do, like how I think Marco would have…It’s something, Jean. It is.”

It could turn the tide of the war against Marley, help them win or at least stand a chance at defending their borders. The idea that there’s even more they don’t know is daunting, but if they can find the answers…if they know where to look…

“What if he never turned back into a human?” Connie asks all of a sudden, looking around at them. “Maybe he’s like my…maybe he didn’t know how…?”

A wave of sadness sweeps across the room. Ragako and Connie’s family’s fate hangs heavily over all of them. Armin knows Hange still has a team studying Connie’s mother’s Titan form, trying to find out the most they can. He knows they’ve sliced open her nape without killing her, but found no human form there. It’s another one of the many tragic mysteries they’ve never really been able to solve yet.

“Maintaining a Titan form for that long? Unlikely.” Levi says bluntly, carefully side-stepping the issue of Ragako.

Connie opens his mouth to speak again, but Jean cuts him off. “Stop thinking about him, Connie,” Jean says tiredly. “I don’t think Marco’s the point they want to get across to us here.” The sandy-haired scout straightens in his seat and looks at the two officers. “So what is?”

They can all see how hard Jean is trying to get past this and while they admire it, it’s no less painful. Commander Hange regards him solemnly. “We need to look into the circumstances under which Marco Bott became a Titan Shifter. Recovering him at this point is…”

“Futile,” Jean supplies, and the Commander shakes her head.

“ _Excessive_ ,” she says emphatically. “We have a golden opportunity here. If we can’t find him then we’ll focus on finding others like him. There must be something in his records that can give us a clue. We need a lead.”

Armin knows she’s right, but he looks at his friends nervously. They don’t look like they want to let go of Marco again so easily—especially Eren, who’s glowering at Levi for putting his cards on the table the way the Corporal did. He can see it all in their eyes. He knows what they’re thinking. _There’s still hope. There should still be hope._ Armin wants to hope, too. but they can’t afford to, and, surprisingly, the only who seems to understand that right now is Jean.

The sandy-haired scout takes a deep shaky breath and everyone waits on the edge of their seat. Jean has never let them down before. They’ll all follow his lead like they always do, but Jean doesn’t even spare them a glance. He’s never looked to them to make a decision and he won’t suddenly start now. He looks up at the officers resolutely, his eyes sharp and indomitable, and Armin knows what he’s decided before he finally speaks.

“How can I help, Commander?”

* * *

Levi stands by the open flap of the Command Post entrance for a long time, looking out into the camp laid out on the plain. They’ve decided not to move out today as originally planned, busying the scouts instead with surveying the area more thoroughly. He sent his own squad to the beach with no specific orders, knowing they have a better chance of calming themselves down if they stayed together. They all need to rest up anyway.

Levi knows Hange is just buying more time to come to a decision on what to do next. The Commander is sitting behind her desk. She’s been poring over Armin’s and her own notes for hours. She still hasn’t had any sleep, but the Corporal knows he’s powerless to stop her when she gets like this. The least he can do is stay awake with her.

“Well, that went better than expected,” Levi says, stepping back into the Command Post toward her with a cup of tea in each hand. He slides one over to Hange before he takes a sip of his own, wishing it was something much stronger.

Hange smiles gratefully and downs her cup of tea in one go. “It was hard on them, but they took it like champs.”

Levi agrees. “Not bad for some snotty-faced brats.”

She chuckles. Levi looks down at her desk and sees maps and journals covering its entire surface. Some of the records are much older ones that have nothing to do with this morning’s conversation with his squad. He sees Eren’s name on several of them and Levi sets his tea down.

“You’re cooking something up,” he observes. “What’s on your mind?”

Hange looks up at him then and he knows that look. He’s seen it countless times before, both on her face and on Erwin’s. It’s the look that means they’re trying to see how receptive he’ll be to what they’re about to say next, like they’re not really sure they can trust him to handle that kind of information. Levi hates that look.

“I know how you feel about the situation, but Connie might have been on to something,” she says slowly. “Based on what Armin’s written down, that boy’s transformation is different from all the other Titan Shifters’. There was no lightning from the sky. Ymir’s Titan, which was significantly smaller than the others’ still had that. But this Marco’s didn’t.”

“So?” Levi frowns. He’s not following.

“It might mean that he didn’t need the kind of energy Eren and the others do to transform. At least not from an outside source. It’s just a theory, but if he had his own source of that kind of energy within himself then isn’t it possible that he could maintain that form for a longer period of time?”

Levi thinks about. He doesn’t know the first thing about Titan science, but he can see where she’s going. The more energy a Titan Shifter has, the longer they can stay active. But one year in a Titan form? What human being would willingly subject himself to that? Unless he can’t control it. But even then…

“Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves?” He asks, taking a seat across her desk. He gestures to the notes that have Eren’s name written all over them. “Eren can’t maintain his Titan form for more than a few hours even at rest. When he fights, he’ll last probably an hour maximum depending on the energy he uses. Those other three Titan Shifters were trained to maintain the form for longer, but I doubt even they could last a whole year as a Titan.”

“We can’t rule it out,” she insists, but Levi shakes his head.

“Hange, you’re grasping at straws.”

The Commander frowns then and he can tell she’s disappointed. “If it was Eren out there would you be so quick to give up?” she asks quietly and Levi scowls.

“Leave the brat out of this.” He glares at her, but she only looks back calmly, like she actually expects an answer. She’s not reprimanding him, not even teasing him. Levi sighs. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Hange pulls a drawer under her desk open and pulls out another one of her journals. She flips it open to a certain page and hands it over to him. “I took the liberty of continuing my studies on Eren’s Titan Form while you and Erwin were finalizing the plans to retake Shiganshina,” she says as the Corporal starts to read. “We knew we were going up against the Colossal and Armored Titans again. There were certain things Erwin and I needed to know before we even wanted to take that chance.”

“Fourteen days…” Levi breathes, looking up from the journal. “You had Eren stay in his Titan form for fourteen days. After everything he just went through with Rod Reiss?”

Hange nods. “Eren being able to control other Titans, and then being able to harden his own Titan form into stone…we had to accelerate our experiments. We were running out of time.”

“Did Erwin know about this?”

“It was his idea.”

“That’s why you pushed him so hard in Trost,” Levi accuses and Hange doesn’t deny it. “You figured that if he can keep that form for that long then how hard would it be for him to keep using his hardening ability for that Titan Guillotine.” He snaps the journal shut and tosses it back on her desk. He’s furious. He roughly remembers that around that time Eren had suddenly become scarce for longer than usual. He knew Erwin and Hange had still been conducting their experiments even as the entire Survey Corps prepared for its toughest battle yet. Back then, he had been distracted, continuing the Corps Training, facilitating the preparations, and even getting involved with Historia’s Orphanage. It was a huge undertaking and in the end he had neglected his guardianship over the Titan Shifter, leaving Eren with Hange and her squad.

_But of course…_

Erwin and Hange had apparently kept him busy on purpose.

“Well, what the hell happens to a kid when he stays a Titan for two weeks?” He growls. He tries to stay calm. _It’s done_ , he tells himself. He can’t fault Erwin and Hange for this. If he had known, he would have forced himself to go through with it anyway. He’s already seen Eren being experimented on. It’s just another one of the many sacrifices they had to make for Humanity.

But he remembers finally seeing the Titan Shifter again as he used his hardening ability to help make the Titan Guillotine. The young scout was so weak. It took him longer to bounce back after every transformation. He bled from his nose and mouth constantly. He needed help in the most mundane of tasks: his chores, getting dressed, even getting out of bed. Levi had been angry at Hange for getting carried away. He had no idea that she had already done so much worse.

The Commander pulls the journal back to her, but she doesn’t open it. Apparently, she remembers it all without having to. “He started behaving erratically after the first few days,” she begins. “He became unpredictable, harder to control. It was worse than that time we had him transform three times in a row, and it only went downhill as the days went by. When we finally decided to end the experiment, he couldn’t turn back. We left him to it for another few days just to see if he could before we took the matter into our own hands.” She frowns and pinches the bridge of her nose as she goes on, as if the mental image upsets her. It certainly upsets Levi. “Using up his energy by forcing him to regenerate didn’t help. Moblit and I had to cut him free and…he was deeper in his Titan Form than ever. It was a lot harder to pull him out. There was a point where I wasn’t even sure we could anymore.”

Levi stares at her hard for a few moments. “Forcing him to regenerate?” he repeats slowly and Hange doesn’t flinch.

“Levi, you know what we do in our experiments.”

Of course he does. The Corporal lets out a deep angry breath through his nose. _If Erwin wasn’t already dead…_

“My point is,” Hange continues, bringing them back on track. She doesn’t want to incur any more of his wrath. “Eren maintained his Titan Form physically for that long until we intervened. Who knows how long he would have stayed a Titan if we hadn’t.”

“But if Eren started to lose control in just two weeks, then what happens to someone who stays a Titan for a whole year?” Levi counters. “It looks like they become a mindless Titan just like the rest of them.”

“With a _human being_ still trapped in there.” She says emphatically, groaning in frustration and rubbing her left eye over the eyepatch. “Work with me here!”

They glare at each other. Levi is fuming, but he’s not sure if it’s because it sounds like she wants to send him on a wild goose chase or because they did all that to Eren without his knowledge. But why should that matter? They don’t need his permission. _Don’t take it personally_ , he tells himself. _Despite everything, you’re still his executioner. Don’t make that any harder than it already is._

Had he known, he never would have laid a hand on him. Levi pushes thoughts of Eren aside and goes back to the matter at hand.

“We just wiped out most of the Titans on both sides of Wall Maria,” he says. “Even if you’re right and that kid somehow managed to survive for longer than we thought was possible…” He thinks back to all the Titans they killed in their expeditions since the attack on Trost. He thinks of the Titan Guillotine slamming down as loud as thunder every time it killed a Titan. “I didn’t want to say it in front of them, but we might have even killed that kid ourselves.”

“Eren still retained his intelligence in those two weeks even if he was out of control. He tried to get away or fight us off, but he never tried to devour us. If this Marco retained his intelligence as Titan Shifters do, he would have known to stay away.”

“He could also have been completely absorbed by his Titan Form. Two weeks is nowhere near a year.”

“We know too little to immediately assume the worst,” she insists.

“And we’ve been through too much to still keep hoping for the best,” he spits back and immediately regrets it when he sees the look on her face.

Hange looks betrayed, like he’s letting her down. Levi supposes he is, but he’s not about to run around looking for a runaway Titan Shifter who may not even be alive. Their primary objective is to set up the defense of their borders. Her little side quest to look into that Titan Shifters history makes sense, but actually finding the kid after all this time? What is he supposed to tell his squad when they fail?

“Is it so hard to hope, Levi?” Hange asks softly after a while. He doesn’t answer her and she sighs, scrubbing a hand over her face tiredly before getting up and moving to her makeshift bed. She slumps down on it heavily and heaves an exhausted groan. It annoys the shit out of Levi.

“You know you can just make it an order if you want it so badly,” he growls.

Hange looks at him without saying anything for a while before she shrugs. “I don’t want to have to.”

And that’s it. He’s lost, and she can tell. Levi sighs and leans back in his chair. A breeze suddenly blows in from the open entrance and ruffles the pages of the journal that held the records of Eren’s experimentation. He glances down at it and Hange notices.

“Take it,” she says and he looks at her, surprised. “Take it and see just how hard Eren is trying not to let Humanity down.”

The Corporal snorts. Well, that was unnecessary. But he does take the journal, and he pockets it before scanning the maps still scattered on Hange’s desk. Hange watches him quietly from where she lies as he traces her messy scribbles over the parchment before finally stopping at a small town that’s heavily encircled with thick black ink. He looks back at her wordlessly, arching his brow.

“I’m not asking you to go out looking for that boy, Levi,” she says tiredly, reaching behind her head to remove her eyepatch. “I wasn’t lying to Jean when I said it would be excessive.” When she looks back up her remaining good eye regards him somberly.

“I’m only asking you to let Armin take a close look at every Titan you encounter on your way to Jinae.”

 _So that’s it_ , Levi thinks. He looks back down at the map to plan his trajectory. Jinae isn’t too far from Trost, nestled against Wall Rose on its Southern rim. The route there is straightforward, and if the journey here is anything to go by, they really have wiped out most, if not all, the Titans in the Southern Territories. Hange isn’t asking for too much. Odds are they won’t come across a Titan at all, and if they do, it won’t be this Titan Shifter.

 _Ah, but what if it is?_ Levi stiffens. Why does he feel like that was Erwin speaking just now?

“Hange, we don’t even know which side this kid is on,” he tells her, looking at her gravely. He knows what they’re all hoping for, but they rarely ever get it, do they?

Hange nods, knowing that’s true, and knowing the danger she’s putting the Corporal and his Squad in if things take a turn for the worse.

“If you find him then we’ll find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First I make you think I killed him off then I give you hope then I take it away and then I give it back again. Do I bring Marco back or nah? (I honestly haven't decided yet XD)
> 
> I made this chapter a little longer since it'll take me a a while to get the next one out. Maybe at the end of the month? I hope you're liking this so far!
> 
> (And sorry, Jason, I did the thing where Marco's a Titan ^^)
> 
> TEASER FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER: "Truth be told, apart from above average intelligence and an athletic physique, Marco was nothing out of the ordinary. Or was Marco that good at keeping his secret?"


	5. Paranoia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The squad rides to Jinae in search for answers, but only finds even more questions as evidence forces them to consider possibilities they're nowhere near ready to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First off, I want to thank all the readers who've left comments and kudos! Thank you! Much appreciated! 
> 
> Next, I apologize for this chapter taking longer than I initially promised, but I made it even longer than the last one to make up for it. Seriously, it's kinda long. I hope you get through it without getting too bored!
> 
> A lot of stuff happens in this chapter, a lot of emotions running wild. I'm dabbling with Mikasa's character here, and hers is the most difficult one I've had to deal with so far. I've also put in some especially tight Jean-Sasha friendship in there because Jean really needs a friend and Marco just isn't around.
> 
> Lastly, this chapter truly establishes Jean and Marco's relationship for this whole fic.
> 
> Enjoy!

_"You’ve gotten better.”_

_Jean jumps and flips his sketchpad over in record time. He’s lying on his bunk, drawing. He’s just finished the 3DMG exercise for the day and, as usual, finished well before all the other cadets so he could afford some down time. He usually has at least half an hour to himself because the one who finishes after him is Mikasa and she always waits for Eren, so he’s surprised that someone else is already here and even more surprised that it’s Marco. Not even Reiner or Bertolt finish 3DMG training after Jean this soon._

_“Geez, warn a guy, will you?” He grouses. At least it’s just Marco who already knows Jean occasionally draws Mikasa. Jean would never hear the end of it if it was Eren who caught him. “You’re done early,” he observes, rolling over to lie on his side just as Marco hunkers down to the floor to look for something under his bed. Marco gives him a noncommittal hum. Only the top of his head is visible and Jean can see his hair is still damp with sweat. He must have come straight from the exercise._

_“What’re you looking for?” the younger trainee eventually asks when the freckled brunette takes a while. Jean’s not really surprised. No one will believe him, but Marco is messy as hell and often misplaced his things._

_“My first aid kit,” came the exasperated reply and Jean shoves his sketchpad under his pillow as he moves to sit up._

_“You hurt?”_

_Marco sighs and gets up on his knees where Jean can finally see him. He’s holding his right hand tightly over his left forearm. Blood runs down the limb in rivulets. “Oi, what the hell, Marco?!”_

_“Eren misfired and cut me with one of his lines,” Marco explains quickly, grimacing. “It looks worse than it is, but they made me stop the exercise ‘cause I kept losing my grip. Now if it would only stop bleeding...”_

_Jean curses and quickly fishes his own first aid kit out from where he always keeps it at the ready under his bed. “Go wash it up and get back here so I can see,” he tells Marco. He’s an old hand at patching his friends up. It’s just another skillset he was particularly good at. They don’t bother going to the infirmary for minor injuries anyway. Jean hopes that’s all this is._

_Marco comes back quickly, dabbing the wound dry with a clean towel, and Jean takes his injured arm and examines it. It’s not too bad—it doesn’t look it’s damaged the muscle anyway—but it’s long and deep and needs a thorough cleaning and a few stitches. Jean can do that._

_“I don’t have any anesthetic,” Jean tells Marco as he starts cleaning the cut. He doesn’t even ask if Marco is okay with him stitching it up, but clearly the brunette is. It’s not like it’s the first time._

_“They won’t give me any even if I do go to the infirmary anyway,” Marco says. It’s true. The trainees are usually left to deal with the more minor injuries by themselves. They’ll have to learn to deal with worse on their own anyhow._

_Jean meticulously cleans the cut with antiseptic, instructing the other trainee to bite into the towel through the pain. Once it stops bleeding, he carefully sutures the skin and tissue together. He’s sure it hurts because this is the deepest laceration Jean has ever had to stitch up yet, but other than furrowing his brows together in discomfort and groaning every time he bites into the towel, Marco doesn’t complain._

_“This is gonna bug you for at least a week,” Jean says when he’s done. “If Yeager slices off one of your limbs and you don’t make it into the MP’s, I’m gonna kill him.”_

_Marco removes the towel from his mouth and lets out a long sigh of relief when Jean finishes. The wound is still bleeding a little so he applies pressure to it with a soft hiss of pain. “Thanks, Jean,” he mumbles, thumbing the tender skin that will no doubt be sore and swollen for the next few days. “And I’ll try not to let him, especially if that’s what’s at stake.”_

_“Looking forward to the good life, eh?” Jean smirks. They have another year until graduation, but Jean can tell they both rank somewhere in the top ten. With their scores and aptitude in the field, they really do have a shot at making it into the Military Police. He hopes he does, and he’s not going to stop working his ass off for this. Making it into the MP’s is his ultimate goal here, and it’d be even better if Marco made it, too._

_“You know that’s not why I want to sign up for the MP’s,” Marco reminds him and Jean rolls his eyes._

_“I know, I know! You wanna serve the King and all that. That’s just like you, but don’t tell me being one of the highest paid soldiers in the Military doesn’t have its appeal.”_

_“It certainly would help my family back home,” the brunette says wistfully and there’s a ripple of sadness to his tone. Jean knows Marco misses his family, and that he and his mother write each other regularly. None of the trainees have seen their families since they started, but their last year of training will be in Trost, meaning Jean, Thomas, and all the other kids from that District will be seeing their homes way before the others will._

_He supposes that’s why he doesn’t feel as homesick as he knows Marco does. And anyway Jean doesn’t have siblings like Marco. His house is quiet and lonely, whereas Marco’s is surely a busy, lively one. Jean’s actually sort of jealous._

_“You know we’ll be in Trost in a few weeks,” he starts and Marco turns his head to look at him. “Jinae’s not that far. It’d be, what? A full day’s ride? I’m sure your mom and brothers would gladly make the trip to see you if you told her.”_

_“She can’t leave the farm unattended, Jean, not even for a day.” Marco sighs and lies back on his bunk, examining Jean’s handiwork on his arm to distract himself. “We already knew we wouldn’t be seeing each other for three years. I just didn’t know three years would feel this long.”_

_Marco gives him a small, sad smile that makes Jean feel for him. They’ve known each other for two years and were quick to become the best of friends, but Jean still doesn’t know how to comfort Marco when he gets like this. He always feels inadequate when he tries; he’s just not good at that kind of thing and Marco deserves so much better. But this time he has an idea…_

_He grabs his sketchpad and pencils from under his pillow and flips it open to a fresh page. “Hey, tell me what they look like,” he says._

_“What who looks like?” Marco asks, confused._

_“Your family, idiot,” Jean deadpans as he quickly sharpens his pencils. “I’m going to try and draw them.”_

_“Just from description? Without even seeing them?” Marco sits up, excited. “Can you do that?”_

_“I can try?” Jean offers, glad to see the light back in Marco’s eyes. He finds that he’s actually excited at the prospect of making Marco feel better in a way only he knows how. He grins._

_“Tell me which one looks like you the most and we can start from there.”_

* * *

They start by making Jean draw Marco, which he does with a hand that doesn’t shake at all as he sketches lines and shades contours with practiced ease. Marco had been his favorite subject to draw for years because Jean was so familiar with his best friend’s face he could just about draw every known human emotion on it. It made for good practice back in their trainee days, and even though he hasn’t seen that face in over a year, he’s done in five minutes. He hands the sketchpad back to Commander Hange.

“That’s him,” he says. “That’s Marco.”

“Good work, Jean,” she tells him as she studies what he’s drawn. “Moblit would be proud.”

She places the sketch between the pages of the journal that contains all her notes on their conversation just now. Jean watches as she rereads a few lines before clasping her hands together in front of her on her desk, probably wondering which question to ask next.

She’s already given their squad the orders to ride to Jinae tomorrow. The Corporal and the rest of his squad are preparing for the mission right now, but the Commander had asked for Jean to stay with her as she questioned him on virtually everything he knows about Marco. All of Marco’s records before his Military training are in Jinae, and going back to the training camp to retrieve whatever they have on the freckled cadet in the archives would take too much time so apparently Jean is the next best thing until they get to Marco’s hometown. He feels like it’s been the longest four hours of his life.

He still can’t believe Marco was a Titan Shifter.

Did Marco’s injuries seem to heal faster than anyone else’s? No, Jean doesn’t think so. He’s seen most, if not all, of Marco’s major injuries. He even patched a lot of them up himself. Jean always checked on him regularly until he was okay again, and the time Marco took to get back on his feet didn’t seem unusual. Of course he could say the same thing about Reiner and Bertolt so it doesn’t conclude anything.

Did Marco have a lot of nightmares? Jean can’t seem to remember him ever waking up in the middle of the night. They slept next to each other for three years, sometimes even spilling past their own mattresses and into the other’s. He thinks he would know if Marco was sleeping fitfully. But he can’t be sure. Maybe Jean slept too deeply to notice?

Truth be told, apart from above average intelligence and an athletic physique, Marco was nothing out of the ordinary. Looking back now he can see how Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie were physically superior compared to everyone else early on. They clearly had prior training, but how was anyone supposed to catch that back then when they were still so young and naïve and busy trying to stay alive? Marco wasn’t anything like them. He struggled through the learning curve just like everybody else and had to learn how to fight from scratch.

He was just a kid who had a family back home, who had never seen a Titan outside of the books they had to study, and had dreamed of a better world for everybody within the Walls. If Marco had been able to join the MP’s, he could have risen up to one of the highest positions short of being the King himself, but he’d always be who he was in that training camp to Jean.

Or was Marco that good at keeping his secret?

“What made you think he died in Trost, Jean?”

Commander Hange’s question catches him off guard and his thoughts slam back to the second night after the battle in Trost. He spent forty-eight hours picking up pieces of the hundreds of soldiers that lost their lives, thinking Marco was out there somewhere doing the same thing and that he’d either bump into the freckled cadet or find him when it was all over. It had honestly never occurred to him that he would never see Marco again until…

“It was Reiner,” Jean answers quietly. “Reiner told me he found the body himself and that Marco never even got to regroup with them the day of the battle. He even brought me to the pyre he said he placed it on. And I…” He sighs and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “I believed him. I didn’t have any reason not to.”

He still remembers that night with painful clarity. Reiner sought him out like he believed Jean needed to be the first to know. _“Jean…Marco’s dead,”_ he had said _._ Just like that. Jean didn’t believe him at first. How could he when he knew Marco had been perfectly fine as the battle drew to a close? But Reiner had been so unnerved, like he couldn’t believe it either. Jean knows now that it had all been an act. Reiner probably just led him to the first pyre they came across and then feigned his own grief as he watched everybody else’s face crumple when he told them the news.

 _Reiner, you sick bastard…_ He thinks, clenching his hands into fists _._ _I bet you were laughing at me as I held a complete stranger’s bones in the palm of my hand that night. Bet you were laughing every time you and I—_

 _No,_ Jean stops himself before he can think about it _. Don’t open that door._

Stopping Hange from killing Reiner in Shiganshina isn’t his only regret involving the blond ever since Jean found out he was the enemy.

“So it’s just as Armin said,” Hange says as she takes down notes. “Reiner must have really believed Marco was dead, and then he lied about the body so you would stop looking for him.”

Jean nods. He can’t deny it was smart of them. He probably wouldn’t have stopped looking or asking questions otherwise.

In front of him, Commander Hange continues to leaf through what she’s written. She’s taking longer and longer with each of her questions this time. Jean knows they’re starting to wrap things up here.

And then she asks: “What was the nature of your relationship with Marco?”

Jean blinks, not expecting a question so personal. Their relationship? He doesn’t even have to think about it. Who was Marco to him? They weren’t physically intimate or romantically involved, but Jean would be lying if he said he never thought about it like any other hormonal teenager in close proximity to a person who actually gave him the time of day would. He grew past the physical attraction early on, though, and saw Marco as so much more.

Marco was his other half. Jean was fifteen, but he knew it to be true. Marco was to Jean who Sasha and Connie are to each other if those two ever get the guts to be honest about how they feel. He was who Eren will always be to Mikasa—family, and someone Jean would surely kill and be killed for. Marco was every Hange to every Moblit in every life. He looked at Marco like the sun shone out of his ass, and if they were ever going to be more than what they already were to each other, they never got the chance to find out.

“He was my best friend,” Jean answers honestly after a while. He doesn’t know how else to put it. There isn’t a name for the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Commander Hange looks at him for a long time before she nods and closes her journal. She doesn’t write that down.

“Thank you, Jean.” She reaches for one of the maps beside her desk and gives it to him. “An advance party will leave for Jinae shortly. Levi Squad will regroup with them when you yourselves arrive, and you’ll be in charge of going through the archives.”

Jean takes the map from her and nods. Hange gets up and the young scout follows.

“You’ll reach Jinae in two days and from there I can give your squad three days at most before you have to head back,” Hange continues, seriously. “Look into everything, Jean. Health records, school records, anything that has his name on it. And also, his family…they should still be there. I don’t want you to make any contact with them. Observe them from afar if you find them. If something seems suspicious, report it to Levi straight away. Understood?”

Jean hesitates at that. Marco’s family, too? It’s only Marco’s mother and two younger brothers left, both of whom are well below their teens, if he remembers correctly. He can’t imagine any of them having anything to do with this, based on the stories his friend had told him about them. Then again, he can’t imagine Marco being a Titan Shifter either. It’s a sound decision, he realizes. It does make sense. “Yes, Commander,” Jean answers with a salute.

“Good chap,” Hange smiles and then dismisses him. Jean salutes her one more time before turning on his heel and leaving the Command Post, glad it’s finally over.

* * *

Marco never fell in love with Trost the way almost all the other trainees did. Connie remembers seeing it in the brunette’s eyes. Jean’s hometown was a huge urban metropolis compared to where a lot of them came from so the trainees had a field day when they first arrived. There were shops for everything everywhere, and exotic food, historic sites and attractions. There was none of that in Ragako, and none of that in Dauper as far as Sasha told him. Back then it had clearly filled Jean with pride, seeing how everyone was in awe of the place he called home. But Marco, while he had looked happy to see Jean so happy, barely gave the city more than a perfunctory glance.

Now they can see why.

Jinae is a large, but quiet settlement sprawled over hills and plains by the riverside. Unlike the hard stone, smoke, and metal of Trost, there’s green grass and blue skies as far as the eye can see. The clear river sparkles red-orange under the setting sun, and the horizon runs far and wide beyond the hills and surrounding forests. The Wall is an impressive structure that towers over the town only on one side and then continues on its way across the plains to disappear into the distance in its vastness. It doesn’t surround Jinae. It doesn’t hold the town and its people prisoner. It’s a perfect mix of urban and rural everyday life, a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the larger cities, but not so quiet that they’d feel like they were in the middle of nowhere.

 _Of course Marco had to come from a place like this_ , Connie thinks fondly as he and the rest of the squad clear the last of the hills along the town’s borders. He turns to Sasha and sees her gawking at the river before she turns to him and grins. Jinae is a beautiful, welcoming sight, even more so after two days of almost non-stop riding.

“Oi, don’t get too excited,” Levi calls to them, seeing their faces. “We’ve still got a job to do.” But they can tell the fresh air and the sight of the river relaxes even him. It’s nice to see miles and miles of greenery without having to worry about Titans hiding within it.

Jean comes riding up behind them then, being the last of their group to arrive. He takes one look at Jinae and looks just as moved as the rest of them.

_This is where Marco’s from. This is where he grew up._

“Whoa,” Jean breathes and Connie looks back at the taller scout, grinning. Their eyes meet, and it actually looks like Jean is about to smile himself until Captain Levi calls him to the front.

“Kirstein,” the Corporal calls. “You’ve got the map?”

“Yes, sir!” Jean nudges Fliss forward toward Levi to hand him the map.

Connie’s face falls when Jean doesn’t look back at him again, and he turns to Sasha, who only pouts and shakes her head sadly.

 _Not yet, huh?_ He thinks as Jean keeps his back to them while he goes over the map with the Corporal. The rest of them wait quietly until Levi has his orders.

“We’ll regroup with the advance party and Garrison at the outpost to let them know we’re here,” The Captain says. “It will be dark soon so we’ll have to leave the Town Archives for tomorrow.”

“Does that mean we can finally eat?” Sasha whispers and Connie elbows her.

Levi pretends he didn’t hear that. “I shouldn’t have to remind you brats to keep your mouths shut, but in case you’ve forgotten, don’t give out critical information. We don’t want to start a panic.”

They all nod and Levi steers his horse to face the town’s gates. “Remember, Hange gave us three days, but that’s three days the Survey Corps is out in the frontlines without our Titan Shifters.” He looks at them seriously to make sure they understand the gravity of the situation. “The sooner we get back to them, the better. Understood?”

They give him a quick salute and Levi rears his horse back before advancing toward Jinae at a full gallop.

* * *

The first day goes by with bone-aching slowness. They don’t stop at Marco’s records. They pull up records of every single Bott that ever lived in Jinae. They pull up records of any seemingly relevant event that’s ever happened in the town: its very construction, any fires, accidents, new comers, or missing people and suspicious deaths—anything that’ll give them a clue on how a Titan Shifter could have come to be in this unobtrusive settlement.

Mikasa looks up when Sasha and Connie enter the room with even more rolls of parchment, having come from the school with Marco’s and Marco’s family’s records under Jean’s instructions.

“Anything?” Sasha asks hopefully, but Mikasa shakes her head. The other two scouts take a seat and each pull up a file to start perusing. Mikasa tries to keep her irritation at bay as they all read quietly, the silence broken only by the occasional rustle of parchment. Research has never been her strong suit, and the inactivity is starting to get on her nerves.

After another hour she decides to take a break to look for Eren or Armin. The two Titan Shifters are supposed to be in the next room going through their own pile of records, but when Mikasa gets there the room is empty.

She sighs almost in relief, glad for an excuse to stretch her legs as she goes looking for them. It takes her a while, but she finally finds Armin out on the grounds, getting some fresh air.

“Armin?” Mikasa calls out to her friend as she walks up to him. “Are you all right?”

She’s been worried about him since his nightmare by the ocean, but they never had the time to talk about it until now. Marco and Armin had been good friends, not as tight as Jean and Marco, but definitely a close second. She can’t imagine what he’s going through, having seen for himself in a memory what really happened to their friend.

The blond turns to her and smiles. “I’m fine,” he answers. “Still tired from the long ride.”

Mikasa sighs. They all are. They made the ride here without stopping other than to eat quickly and feed and water their horses, and then barely had a night’s rest before they had to start working in the Town Archives. They’re under orders to complete this assignment as soon as possible, after all.

It took them two and a half days to get to Jinae from the Ocean, and on their journey they had encountered three Titans separately outside Wall Maria, which they had been ordered to eliminate instead of avoid. It was risky, but it had to be done. Humanity is finally on the brink of annihilating the Titans once and for all so every kill counts.

But something about it still bothers her now that she thinks about it again.

In the first place, the formation they rode out in bewildered all of them. They were too far apart, riding fifty meters away from each other on either side. A squad as small as theirs needed to ride closer together, sacrificing a wider range for their safety. If a Titan came along, they might not have had enough time to respond accordingly.

And the Titans did come. They’re still trickling down from the North outside Wall Maria, after all.

When the first one came toward them, Levi gave the signal to close ranks, which they did immediately. The Corporal gestured silently with his arms, instructing Mikasa and Jean to fall back behind the rest of the squad, and ordering Armin and Eren up front in line with him. Connie and Sasha rode up to the middle of the formation quickly, and Jean and Mikasa brought up the rear because they’re the best in their 3DMG on horseback and could make the kill quick if the Titan got too close behind them.

They rode around the Titan that way, giving it a wide berth. It was far enough away from them that Mikasa wasn’t too worried it would catch up, but their senses were still on high alert just in case it turned out to be an aberrant. It wasn’t, though; it lumbered after them with slow, heavy footsteps like any other Titan, and it fell behind quickly, much to their relief.

That was when the Corporal fired a green flare _toward_ it.

Mikasa scowls just thinking about it. Eren and Armin had been at the front of the formation, too far from her for her to protect them. Even though they’re both Titan Shifters, what good is that power if they’re accidentally killed as humans? She loves them both dearly, but as humans and out of everybody in their squad, the two of them are the last scouts she wants running toward a Titan first.

In the end, the Corporal ordered the two Titan Shifters not to engage while everybody else made the kill quickly, and then they did the same for the two other Titans they came across. No one got hurt and the journey was uneventful after they entered Wall Maria, but it all just seemed like an unnecessary risk. She’ll never understand what goes on in Levi’s head.

“It’s all right, Armin,” she reassures him. “We made it. You did well out there.”

Armin blushes and then snorts derisively. “I didn’t even do anything, Mikasa. Other than be Titan bait, as usual.”

“Titan bait that can grow at least three times bigger than most Titans and wipe them out in an explosion, sure.”

They both turn at the sound of that voice to see Jean coming out to join them. They all nod at each other in greeting and Mikasa is surprised to see him.

Jean’s been avoiding them all since they found out about Marco, and hasn’t been subtle about it. On the field, he’s still their comrade and an excellent soldier, executing maneuvers perfectly in coordination with the others when they had to take out those Titans from the other day. But he hasn’t spoken to any of them since the night of Armin’s nightmare. It hurt, especially Connie and Sasha, but they all understand. They’ve all agreed to give him the time and space he clearly needs. Jean coming to talk to them now is actually a lot sooner than she expected.

“I owe you an apology, Armin,” Jean says after a few minutes of nobody knowing what to say. Armin opens his mouth, probably to say an apology isn’t necessary at all, but Jean cuts him off, clearly needing to get this out. “I know this isn’t any easier on you than it is on me. This isn’t easy for anyone. So I’m sorry for being such an ass.”

Before either of them can respond, somebody else speaks up. “Do you mean for just the last couple of days or from all the way back to when we all first met?” Connie calls as he and Sasha walk up to them as well. “’Cause I gotta tell ya that after four years of your crap, sorry’s just not gonna cut it.”

Connie smugly puts his hands on his hips and Sasha giggles. They’re both grinning, glad that Jean is talking to them again. The three of them have become near inseparable since they joined the Corps and the taller scout’s presence has been sorely missed.

“Asshole,” Jean mutters, chuckling. He returns Sasha’s hug when she steps up to give him one and bumps fists with Connie. Eren comes out from inside the building as well and instead of scowling at the sight of Jean like usual, he gives the taller scout a respectful nod, which Jean returns.

“Captain Levi?” Jean asks when the brunette reaches them.

“Meeting with some squad leaders from the Garrison,” the Titan Shifter answers easily. Mikasa’s almost tempted to ask him how he knows and where he’s been all this time, but she keeps her mouth shut when Eren turns to Jean with a serious look on his face. “So what’s this about, Horse-face?”

Mikasa realizes then that Jean must have called everyone else and asked them to meet here. Armin looks at Jean intently, too, guessing it as well.

“I need to talk to all of you.” Jean gestures for them to follow him to a more secluded spot. He looks around to make sure there’s nobody else in the area before he speaks to them in a hushed tone. “I’ve been thinking. The way we dealt with all those Titans the other day…did any of you feel like something was off?”

They all look at each other and shrug.

“I can’t believe we had to deal with them at all, but orders are orders,” Sasha answers.

“Exactly,” Jean says. “We steer clear of Titans; that’s how the Scouting Legion works. Dealing with one is always an unnecessary risk, even more so that day since there were so few of us. But he had us kill three this time, three that we could have easily outrun.” Everyone else frowns, but Mikasa’s impressed. So it wasn’t just her that wondered about it. “And another thing…” Jean continues, lowering his voice. “Captain Levi had Armin at the front of the formation the whole time. No offense, Armin, but you’re not usually up front for a reason.”

“None taken,” Armin says, but Mikasa glares at him.

“If you’re going to insult him, you better have a point,” she snaps and Jean ducks his head in apology.

“I do,” he insists. He looks at the blond seriously. “Armin, you’d recognize Marco’s Titan Form if you see it, right?”

Armin looks surprised at the question. “Yes, if I got a close enough look at it I think I would.”

Jean nods like it confirms something. “That must be why Captain Levi has been keeping you up front,” he says almost to himself. “Before we left for Jinae, Commander Hange asked me to make a sketch of Marco as a human. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why as a human? And why send an advance party if all we need are his records?”

They all stare at the sandy-haired scout blankly, but Mikasa sees realization dawn in Armin’s blue eyes.

“They’re looking for him. As a Titan _or_ a human,” Armin whispers and Jean nods. Everyone else’s jaw drops. Weren’t they told Marco was as good as dead? Weren’t they told to give up the hope of ever finding him again?

“I don’t know what the reasoning behind it is, but that has to mean the Commander thinks there _is_ a chance that Marco’s alive,” Jean goes on. “And I think the advance party was sent here to go searching for Marco in Jinae before we got here.”

“We know what Marco looks like,” Sasha says, frowning. Connie and Eren look just as confused. “Why involve other scouts?”

Jean and Armin glance at each other, and Mikasa feels something click into place in the back of her mind, but she doesn’t know how to put it into words.

“Because Marco knows what _we_ look like,” Jean explains to them and Mikasa feels a shiver run down her spine. She’s shocked. This isn’t how you’re supposed to feel when you find out there’s a chance a friend you once thought was dead could actually still be alive somewhere.

“They’re taking precautions,” she says, and Jean and Armin look at her to see if she’s thinking along the same line as they are. Apparently, she is.

“Precautions for what?” Connie asks and Jean swallows.

“In case Marco really is here as a human, but doesn’t want to be found.”

Again, Sasha knits her eyebrows. “But that doesn’t make sense. If he’s been here all this time then why wouldn’t he…” she trails off and her brown eyes widen. It’s finally sunk in.

“Oi! What are you playing at?!” Eren shouts and Mikasa quickly looks around to make sure they haven’t caught anyone’s attention. Armin shushes the other Titan Shifter quickly, but the brunette looks furious. “First you don’t even want to know what really happened to Marco, and now you think there’s a chance he’s alive, but you’re acting like he’s one of the bad guys?!”

“I’m not! _They_ are!” Now Jean’s raising his voice, too. “Or at least they’re preparing for it! You think this is how I want it to play out? We don’t actually know if Marco _is_ on our side, and Captain Levi will no doubt be ready to execute him on the spot if he so much as suspects Marco isn’t. We might not even find him at all! But if Commander Hange and Captain Levi are preparing for every imaginable scenario then we have to, too.”

“Why didn’t they tell us then?” Eren challenges. “They know how important he is to us. If anyone’s gonna try their damned hardest to find him, it’s us!”

Armin grabs the brunette’s arm and tries to calm him down. “Eren, please, they know we’re emotionally compromised—”

“Who wouldn’t be? What’s that got to do with anything?” The Titan Shifter is fuming, but Mikasa doesn’t understand why. Now that Jean’s figured it out, it does make sense. If Marco is alive, he knows who they are. If he sees them riding up to Jinae then he can just keep out of sight until they’re gone. They aren’t conducting a search for him, after all. They wouldn’t stay longer than necessary. There’s no reason to look beyond the archives, no reason to look for Marco at all. All Marco would have to do is wait them out.

Mikasa had admittedly written Marco off as dead the night Armin told them what he saw in Bertolt’s memory. She had said Marco would never turn deserter herself, but she didn’t think of this.

“Damn it, Yeager, I’m not here to fight!” Jean continues. “I’m asking for your help! They’ve got us looking through all these records when we should be looking for Marco out there. That advance party is still here so that has to mean they haven’t found him, right? After everything we’ve been through…as it stands, they might shoot first and ask questions later, and I don’t want that to happen. If he’s alive, I want to know the truth before anyone else, and from his own lips. So if he’s out there, we have to find him first.”

Jean lets that sink into their heads. This news clearly bothers all of them. They aren’t prepared to face this possibility. They didn’t think they had to be. They’re all still struggling to make peace with the idea of Marco being a Titan Shifter, of their friend’s presumed demise in Titan-infested territory. Now they have to consider that Marco might be alive, but might not be their friend at all?

“So what do we do?” Sasha asks after a while.

“We split up. Some of us will stay here and the others will look around town.”

Sasha bites her lip nervously. “I mean…what do we do if we do find Marco?”

Jean looks taken aback by the question and Mikasa has to scoff. It’s a no-brainer, isn’t it?

“We kill him if he turns out to be hostile,” she says, staring all of them down. There’s no other way. They have to. “Right?” she pushes when nobody answers. She turns to Jean for confirmation, but the taller scout is staring at her, horrified.

“Mikasa…” Armin says shakily and the entire squad is looking at her like she’s gone mad.

“D-damn it, nobody’s killing anyone!!!” Jean shouts when he recovers from the shock. “If anything, the Commander still needs him for interrogation a-and…testing. So we’ve got to bring him in. Look, we just need to find him first! That’s all I’m saying!”

Jean breaks eye contact with her then and seems to shudder before he turns to the others to lay out his plan. Mikasa frowns at his reaction, at all of their reactions. No one will look her in the eye except Armin, who’s looking at her uneasily.

But why? If Marco turns out to be their enemy, shouldn’t they kill him—kill him before he kills them? Did they all forget what happened the last time they hesitated? The last time they thought it would be a good idea to wait and see how things would play out? People died because they thought they could lure Annie into a trap in Stohess. People died because Mikasa wasn’t fast enough to Kill Bertolt and Reiner the day they finally revealed themselves, because Eren didn’t alert anyone to what the two had just admitted to him in time. And who knows what the repercussions will be for Jean stopping Hange from killing Reiner the day they finally defeated him only to have him escape in the mouth of the four-legged Titan?

Hesitation costs lives, and they’ve all had to learn that the hard way. Mikasa certainly doesn’t need another lesson.

Armin may have said he thought Marco would have been on their side, but what if Armin was wrong? Because if Marco _is_ alive then he would have only one reason to hide, and if that reason is what Mikasa thinks it is then Marco surviving Trost isn’t good news for anyone at all. Not even Jean.

So if they do find him, is Jean prepared to do what he has to if things go South? Are the others?

Because Mikasa is.

She’ll kill anyone who ever tries to harm her family again.

* * *

 _We should have brought our horses_ , Jean thinks as he walks the long trek toward the town market. The sun is beating down on his hooded head. He’s exhausted, not from all the walking, but from the emotional beating he seems to be going through every minute since the day they found the Ocean.

The past few days have been a runaway wagon ride of getting their hopes up and then dashing them on the rocks again in an endless loop of uncertainty. He tries to put it out of his mind and focus on his task, but he can’t. Is Marco really alive? Is he with them or against them? Where is he? Will they ever find him? The questions don’t stop coming and they go round and round in his head incessantly, never giving him a moment’s peace.

Oblivious to his turmoil, Sasha silently keeps up with him, humming softly to herself. They’re both headed to the market because of her. She’s following her nose again, drawn to the scent of freshly baked goods and food that wafts into the air from the crowded bazaar. Jean doesn’t like the idea of going to a crowded place, but he knows she’ll bug him about being hungry for hours if he doesn’t let her eat so they made a deal to make it quick.

If anything, it will let them get a closer look at most of the townspeople. It’s not like he expects to see Marco walking along the streets or to be standing in the middle of the town square, but they’ve got to start somewhere. The marketplace is along the way to the general vicinity of where Jean knows the Bott Family’s house and farm are anyway.

“You know you didn’t answer my question earlier,” Sasha says all of a sudden, peering up at him from under her hood. They’ve reached the market now and they both scan the crowd surreptitiously. Or at least Jean does. Sasha’s eyes flit from a person’s face to the food they’re holding as she goes.

“Which one?” Jean asks, steering clear of the jostling crowd so he can get a better vantage point.

“What are we going to do if we find Marco?” she whispers.

“Damn it, Sasha, it took us an hour to get here on foot and you’re asking me this now in the middle of a marketplace?” He hisses and she has the grace to look sheepish.

“I just thought of it now, okay? Answer the question!”

Jean sighs and pushes her along. They look at each and every face they come across discretely as they go. “I said we’d bring him in, didn’t I?” He follows her as she slinks through the throngs of people and stalls with ease.

“What about what Mikasa said?” she asks, looking back at him.

“I thought I made myself clear,” Jean tells her firmly. “The Commander will want us to bring him in.”

“But what if we have no choice?”

Jean grabs her arm then and whirls her around to face him, pulling her to the side so they don’t attract any attention. “Oi, what is it you want to hear exactly, Potato Girl?” He asks, glaring at her. “Are you asking me if I can kill Marco if it comes down to it?”

Unfazed, Sasha only blinks up at him. “Can you?”

He curses and lets her go, balling his hands into fists at his sides. “Aren’t you the one who cried when we defeated Reiner that first time?” he challenges and Sasha actually flinches. Jean immediately regrets his harsh words when she pouts and looks away.

“That…that doesn’t answer my question, Horse-face,” She whispers shakily and Jean sighs, turning away from her with his hands on his hips. What _are_ they going to do? He keeps telling himself that finding Marco in the flesh is only one possibility among many, just one of the countless wild theories Commander Hange must be considering—and an unlikely one at that. They most likely will _not_ find him in Jinae. They most likely won’t find Marco _ever_.

But despite how quickly it looked like he was able to put the matter to rest the night Armin told them, every time they’re faced with the chance of finding Marco, Jean finds himself latching on to it almost desperately. Because part of him wants Marco back so _badly_ , yet part of him is terrified of what that entails. And now they’re faced with the possibility that Marco isn’t who they think he is? Jean doesn’t know how much more of this he can handle, but he knows he has to look and see for himself. He knows he needs the closure. He’s going to look under every rock and up every tree in Jinae for Marco even if all it does is prove to himself that the Titan Shifter isn’t here.

“I dealt the killing blow, you know,” Sasha says suddenly from behind him and Jean turns back around to face her. “Or what should have been the killing blow anyway.”

Jean remembers. It took two squads to get through Reiner’s armor, and when they finally did it was Sasha who came swooping down to cut through the vulnerable spot, slicing the top half of Reiner’s real head clean off. Reiner somehow survived and then regenerated, though, but it doesn’t change the fact that Sasha saw Reiner’s lifeless body tangled in his Armored Titan form with only his tongue and bottom teeth where his face should have been, knowing it was her that did it.

“It’s…different,” she goes on. “Not like killing ordinary Titans. Something in there sort of…snaps. Bone, obviously; his jaw and the back of his skull, I guess?  I felt it on my blades.” She looks down at her hands like she can still feel it. She probably still can. “I just…don’t want you of all people to have to feel that if…”

_If it’s Marco._

“Yeah, well, it’s not always up to us,” Jean says, shaking his head. “But I’d do it. Don’t you doubt that. If any of our lives is in danger, if I have to do it to save someone’s ass, I will.” Jean knows he will. He’ll hate it, but he will. After all they’ve been through together, Jean can’t stand to lose anyone in his squad—not even Eren.

Sasha searches his eyes for a moment before she nods almost to herself. “Here.” She pushes something into his hand and Jean looks down at it to see a boiled potato.

He stares at it gob-smacked before he snickers. “Out of all the things you can have here, you go for a plain potato? You can get this anywhere!”

“They were the easiest things I could take!” She says, grinning as she takes a bite out of her own potato.

Jean takes a bite off his as well and then stops mid-chew when he realizes what she just said. “Wait… you paid for these, right?!”

Sasha smirks and then shrugs. “I might not have—WHOA!”

Something careens into the back of her legs and Sasha cries out as she falls backwards. Jean catches her before she hits the ground, but they both go down hard. “Oi! Watch it!” Jean yells at whoever just ran into his friend, turning around to face the offender.

Sasha picks herself up, too, and then huffs when she sees who it is.

It’s a kid, probably eight years old at most. He’s sitting there on his butt on the ground, staring up at them nervously. Sasha sighs when she sees how scared he looks before she moves and starts picking up all the things he’s dropped. She can’t yell at a kid who’s looking up at her like a kicked puppy, after all.

“Hey, be more careful,” she chides, shoving fruits and other things into the bag the boy dropped. “We could have been seriously hurt, you know.”

The sound of her voice must snap him out of it because he startles and starts picking his things up as well. “I-I’m sorry! Were you?” The kid stammers and Sasha shakes her head.

“Nah,” she says, and jerks her thumb back at Jean. “My friend broke my fall with his butt.” She turns back to look at him, grinning, but Jean doesn’t seem to hear her. He’s practically looking right through her at the boy who’s scrambling to pick up the apples that are rolling away.

“Jean?” She asks when he doesn’t say anything. “Are you—“

“LUCA!”

Someone calls and they all turn at the sound of that voice as someone else comes running up to them. Sasha gasps when the newcomer arrives to help the other boy up.

_Dark hair, a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose._

“I told you not to run around!” the boy scolds the other gently before he turns to the two scouts with wide brown eyes.

Jean knows those eyes.

“Sorry, are you all right?” The freckled boy looks from one scout to the other. Jean and Sasha can only gape at him wordlessly and he frowns when neither of them answers right away. “Did he hurt anyone?”

“I didn’t, Simon! It was an accident!” The boy named Luca cries and the older boy, probably no more than eleven years old, looks back down at what can only be his younger brother.

“I didn’t say you did it on purpose, but I have to make sure.” He turns back to Jean and Sasha in concern. The two still haven’t said a word and it’s clearly starting to unnerve the kid. It’s Sasha who snaps out of it first when she sees the boy surreptitiously move in front of his younger brother as if to shield him from the two teenagers.

“N-no harm done,” she says, putting a shaky smile on her face. “Just be careful next time, all right? You made us drop our potatoes.”

The younger boy blushes at that, and his brother takes the bag of produce from him and brings out two apples. “Please take this as payment!” The one named Simon says, offering one to Sasha.  “We’re sorry for the inconvenience!”

Simon steps up to Jean to hand him one, too, and the sandy-haired scout accepts it without a word, still staring intently at the kid’s face. Simon looks back up at him curiously, but Jean still doesn’t say anything and the boy flushes under Jean’s sharp gaze.

“Thanks!” Sasha pipes up with false brightness to diffuse the awkwardness, elbowing Jean when the two brothers step back from them.

“Y-yeah…” Jean finally stammers, holding the apple he’s just been given tightly. “Thanks.” He gives the two boys a wan smile.

They smile back politely before taking their leave, darting through the crowded marketplace.

“Wait—” Sasha starts, but Jean shushes her. The look on his face stops her from calling out to them again and they let the two boys disappear into the crowd and then come out on the other side, clearly about to leave. “Jean…are they…?”

“They are,” Jean breathes as he watches the two boys leave the marketplace and start running up the hill.

Marco’s younger brothers: Simon and Luca Bott. Jean knows them—or at least he knows their names and faces. He’s drawn them for Marco before, always starting with Simon because Marco always said he looked like their oldest brother the most. It was easy to take it from there. Jean always felt like he was essentially just drawing a younger version of Marco, that he wasn’t getting it right and that Marco was just being nice when he said it was perfect. But it turns out that the resemblance is uncanny. Simon looks almost exactly like Marco did when Jean first met him.

“Give them a head start,” Jean instructs and Sasha nods.

The two boys, oblivious to the scouts’ watchful eyes, talk among themselves as they go. They playfully shove at each other, smiling, the mishap from earlier already gone from their minds just like that. Simon laughs at something Luca says and then the boys crest the hill and disappear from view.

Jean and Sasha quickly set out to follow them.

It’s another half hour and a few miles to get to where the boys live, but Jean knows it’s home the moment he sees it. He and Sasha stay hidden within a field of tall crops as Simon and Luca run up the road to where a woman is already waiting for them on the porch with the door wide open behind her. That woman has to be their mother. Marco’s mother. This house has to be Marco’s house.

“Sasha, get back to the outpost,” Jean whispers as the little family enters their home together. “Tell Captain Levi I’ve got eyes on the Botts.”

“Are you kidding?” she says. “It’s almost sundown! What if you need back-up? I’m not gonna leave you here by yourself!”

“Then hurry up so you can come back! We’ll need our horses for a quick getaway if it comes to that anyway. In the meantime I don’t plan on being seen so I’ll be fine,” Jean tells her as he quickly surveys the area around them, taking in potential hiding places. There’s a big tree by the house and its branches are thick enough to give him proper cover. He can probably see into the house from there, too. That’s where he’ll set up his stake-out.

“I’ll be up in that tree when you get back,” he tells her, pointing at it. “Tether the horses farther away where no one will see you coming.”

“You’re not going in there, are you?” Sasha asks, seeing the open windows.

“No. Not without back-up so get your ass going already!”

Still, Sasha hesitates. “Jean, if you see something, don’t…” she trails off and Jean can hear the worry in her voice. “Just don’t do anything. Not yet, not if you’re alone, all right?”

Jean nods. “Of course I won’t. You think I got a death wish or something?” He grins at her to reassure her. She doesn’t look too convinced, but it’s all he’s got. “I’ll take a look around and then stake out on that tree until you get back. I swear it.”

Sasha looks at him and then at the Bott’s farm for a moment before she nods. “Okay. I better not be coming back to your dead ass, Horse-face.”

“Get outta here, Potato Girl,” he tells her, but she’s already disappearing through the crops at a full run, no doubt eager to get back as soon as possible. Jean waits until the sound of her footsteps fades away before venturing closer to the Bott property.

The Commander’s instructions were clear. Keep an eye on them and report anything suspicious back to Captain Levi. Don’t make any contact. The accident from earlier doesn’t count, Jean tells himself.

He spends the first few hours surveying the property’s perimeter. The farm isn’t overly large, being a small family-run venture. There are no other roads or paths that lead up to it, just the one road he saw the Bott brothers take. There’s a barn that he and Sasha missed earlier, though. It’s small and rundown, hidden from the main road because it’s surrounded by trees. Jean makes a mental note to make it the first thing he checks out when the other scout gets back.

He clambers up the tree next to the Bott’s home after sundown, watching the family throughout their evening meal in the cover of darkness. Mrs. Bott is a tall, slender, middle-aged woman who looks drained beyond her years. It has to be difficult, running a farm this size with only two young boys for help.

Simon looks a little worn-out for his age, too. He isn’t scrawny; he has the same build Marco did, but it can’t be good for any kid, being the man of the house since he was probably seven years old. He probably does most of the chores the way Marco said he did before he joined the Military, what with Luca being as young as he is.

It’s not supposed to be this way. Marco had been working his ass off to give them a better life. He was going to bring them all into the interior with him. They would have sold the farm. Jean would have met them with Marco the day they arrived and Marco would have visited them every chance he got to make up for the years he was away training. How cruel is it that none of that ever got to happen?

Jean puts the thoughts of Marco and all the things that would never come to be out of his mind and draws closer as the Botts head for bed. He watches from the tree as Mrs. Bott says her prayers and then turns in for the night. The boys each have their own room and like their mother they both fall asleep almost instantly. The whole house is dark and quiet now.

That’s it. There’s nothing out of the ordinary here. What is he expected to find? A family of Titan Shifters? Marco sitting there having dinner with his family, right as rain, or out on the field in his Titan Form?

 _You still haven’t checked the barn,_ he reminds himself. He looks across the field at where the dilapidated structure looms behind the trees in the darkness. The hours go by and he’s tempted, so tempted, to check the barn out right now, but it’s too big a risk to go alone. He sighs and shifts his position against the tree trunk. He’s pretty much stuck here until Sasha gets back.

Where is she anyway? The moon is high up in the sky now. It’s been hours.

His attention is brought back to the house when a small light comes from within one of the rooms. Simon’s room. It strikes Jean again, the resemblance between Simon and Marco. How many times had he seen an older version of that freckled face and those brown eyes illuminated only by candle light in the darkness? Jean watches as the freckled boy gets up from his bed, taking the lantern he’s just lit and tiptoeing out of his room and into Luca’s. The younger boy is apparently already waiting for him, sitting up in his bed when his brother opens his door.

 _What are you two doing up at this hour?_ Jean wonders fondly. Marco once told him that he and his brothers would all sneak into one room so he could read them stories. It looks like old habits die hard.

Except that Jean notices it’s far too late for two kids to be reading.

Suddenly it feels like someone’s just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.

 _No_ , Jean thinks as Simon brings a finger to his lips in the universal gesture of silence when Luca carefully climbs down his bed. _No, it can’t be…_

Jean’s eyes flit to Mrs. Bott’s room, but the woman hasn’t stirred. The two boys leave Luca’s room hand in hand and Jean follows their progress through the house by the light of Simon’s lantern, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He scrambles through the thick tree branches so he doesn’t lose sight of them.

The two boys carefully pick their way through the hallway.

Down the stairs.

Out the backdoor.

Simon has a bag under one arm.

Without thinking, Jean climbs down the tree and runs into the cover of the crop field, taking off after the two as quickly but quietly as he can. Staying within the crops forces him to swing away from the house and the two boys who have a more direct route, but he has no choice. He can’t be seen.

The light from Simon’s lantern winks in and out of sight as the two boys continue along their way. It’s almost insane how much Jean wants the two boys to veer off course, to turn back. This is supposed to be what Jean is looking for, isn’t it? A lead. An answer. Nothing could be more suspicious than the two boys leaving their house in the dead of night.

Simon and Luca don’t say a word as they walk, and Jean follows their dim lantern almost desperately even though he knows without a doubt where the Bott brothers are going.

The barn.

He comes to a stop a few feet from where the crop field ends just as the Bott brothers reach the rundown building. _No…_ Jean thinks again as he sees Simon hand the lantern to Luca who takes it and turns to look back out across the field, holding the lantern high. He's clearly standing watch.  _No, no, no, no…_

Simon pulls the door to the barn open, sliding it only wide enough for him and his younger brother to squeeze themselves through. Jean watches with his heart in pieces as Luca shimmies into the narrow opening first followed by Simon. The two boys disappear into the darkness within.

That’s when a shadow suddenly falls over Jean from behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This is probably the longest chapter I've ever written in my life.
> 
> In the OVA, Jean sketches as a hobby and I found it endearing so I wanted to stick that in here, too.
> 
> There is no Jean x Simon, I promise you. I just put that there to show how desperately Jean misses Marco and how everything that reminds him of his best friend hurts him. HURTS. HIM. My poor baby.
> 
> The next chapter will be the last one (may have an epilogue) and we'll finally know if Marco really is making a comeback or not!
> 
> And yes, that is some implied Reiner x Jean up there. I might try to write something separately for that! ^^ Oh, and yeah some super subtle Moblit/Hange and Connie/Sasha, too. 
> 
> Let me know what you think! Cheers!


	6. Instinct

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know only one of us can be wrong: he's either dead or alive, either an enemy or an ally. There is no in-between."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm sorry it took me so long to get this out, and I hope you're still reading. This chapter is even longer than the last one so you might wanna pee first! LOL. It kicks off with some angsty Levi x Eren, but there's some sweet (but sad) Jean x Marco and a dash of Connie x Sasha to make up for it. There's still a lot of emotional beating here, but these kids just do it so well.
> 
> For those who were expecting this to be the end, it isn't yet. I put a little too much into this chapter and now I have to write the end separately! I hope to still see you at the end of all this!
> 
> Do enjoy, and please let me know what you think! I don't think I've ever worked so hard for a fic before! -wipes sweat-

_I need you to distract Captain Levi._

Jean’s words hang heavily over Eren all day. What did Jean want him to do? Take Levi out on a candle-lit dinner? That’s not how things work between them. In fact, Eren’s not sure what _does_. Things have been strenuous between him and Levi for the past year, ever since Erwin Smith’s death. Levi still cares about him; Eren knows that. But the loss of the man that gave the Corporal a new life is a dark cloud that now follows him everywhere, even more so because Levi had to choose to let Erwin go.

Levi never told anyone why he chose to save Armin in the end, and while Eren knows Levi didn’t do it for him, there’s only so far the Corporal will let him in anymore since that day.

So Eren gave him time and space. Levi is a good man, a good Captain, and he tries to be there for Eren as best as he can as a superior and comrade. Eren’s learned not to ask for more than the man is willing to give, but it’s hard for Eren to pretend that whatever they have between them doesn’t exist. The Corporal is better at picking his way through emotions and attachments they have to pretend aren’t there than Eren will ever be, but now all of a sudden the man has stopped talking to him entirely. Levi hasn’t said a word to him since the day they found the Ocean. How is Eren supposed to distract him now?

The task really wouldn’t have been so daunting under normal circumstances—a quiet conversation, a light sparring session, even just sitting in silence, reading reports. He and Levi have done that many times, content with the nearness even though it’s nowhere near what they really want, but…something’s been bothering Levi since the night by the Ocean and Eren’s almost certain it has something to do with him. He had been hoping the Corporal would come around eventually, but it looks like he has to make the first move if he wants to keep Levi’s attention on him and not on the fact that half the squad isn’t even in the outpost anymore.

Eren walks down the hallway deep in thought. He left a bottle of the Corporal’s favorite drink in the mess hall, hoping Levi would take the bait. Levi did, and the last Eren checked the Corporal was in there a few hours ago, drinking with the senior members of the Garrison. But the mess hall is empty now and the Garrison members are either back at their posts or already home. It didn’t last as long as Eren hoped it would. The sun has only started to set, and the others better be back soon because Eren’s run out of ideas. He’s got nothing after this.

He knocks on Levi’s door. “Captain Levi, sir?” he calls. “It’s Eren Yeager reporting.”

He waits for the invitation to enter, but it doesn’t come. “Captain?” he calls again.

There’s light spilling into the hallway from the crack under the door so there has to be someone in there. Did Levi fall asleep on his desk again? That won’t be good for his image.

“I’m coming in, Captain,” he announces as he turns the knob and enters Levi’s temporarily assigned office. If Levi didn’t want him there then he would have called out for him to leave, and if he’s asleep then Eren can wake him up to move to a proper bed. It won’t be the first time he’s had to do that, and at least Eren won’t have to worry about having to distract the man then.

He’s surprised, however, to find the Corporal wide awake behind his desk, reading. Levi looks up at him sharply as soon as he enters and Eren falters at the door.

“I…” the Titan Shifter stammers awkwardly. There’s something off about the way Levi is looking at him. “I-I’m sorry. I thought you might have fallen asleep or something.”

Remembering his place, Eren quickly snaps to attention. “I’ve come with Armin’s report.”

Lev’s expression doesn’t change, but he does snap the journal he’s reading shut and puts it in his pocket. “He couldn’t give it himself?”

Eren flushes, and the question stings. He’s given Armin’s and their other squad mate’s written reports before; Levi’s never questioned it until now. Whatever has been bothering the Corporal is clearly still on his mind, and the question makes it clear that Eren isn’t welcome yet. “He’s still going through the records, sir,” he explains. “We’ve barely made a dent.”

Eren’s getting irritated now against his better judgement. Clearly throwing himself into this situation given their current circumstances isn’t one of his brighter ideas. Eren doesn’t even know why Levi isn’t talking to him, and he tried—he really did—but it’s hard not to take it personally. He shouldn’t admit it—not even to himself—but after finding out about Marco, he needed Levi. Marco may not mean anything to the Corporal, but he had been a good friend of Eren’s, and surely he’s allowed to want a little comfort after what they’ve just discovered.

Because Eren’s is shaken to the core. He doesn’t want to believe Marco’s an enemy. Marco could well be just like him: a victim—for that’s what he truly is no matter what anyone tries to make him feel. Just a child thrown to the wolves by a man who had his own life mission, and wanted to use him to finish it. At least Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie had a choice. Eren never did.

Taking Armin’s write-up from his back pocket, he hands it to the Corporal, who takes it without another word. His plan was to go over what they’ve found about Marco with the Corporal. They haven’t found much, but Eren figured he could stretch this stint out up to an hour, at least. He wasn’t counting on being so blatantly unwelcome, though. Levi doesn’t give him an opening at all, and it’s infuriating. He tries his best to stop his emotions from showing on his face, but he’s never been good at that and Levi has come to know him better than most. Thoughts of his squad and what they’re trying to do fly out the window as Eren continues to stand there enduring the tense silence for far more personal reasons.

“Something on your mind?” Levi asks, seeing the look on his face. His blue eyes glint impassively by the light of the candle.

“I think I should be asking you that…sir,” Eren answers quietly. It’s forward and unlike him, but Eren’s tired of this. Whatever is bothering Levi, whatever Eren’s done this time, they can talk about it. He stares at Levi openly, hoping the other man can see it in his eyes.

Levi stares back at him for a moment before he sighs and straightens in his seat. He looks tired, too. “Sit down,” he says softly and the Titan Shifter obeys. Levi gets up just as the younger scout takes a seat and then makes his way to his side table where there’s a bottle of liquor waiting for him. Eren notices him pouring more than the usual amount in his glass. He doesn’t pour one for Eren.

“So what have you found?” The Corporal asks when he turns around again, gesturing at Armin’s report as he takes his seat across the desk from Eren.

Feeling an ease in the tension, Eren reaches over for Armin’s report, thankful for the small gesture at normalcy. It’s less nerve-wracking for him to read the report for the Corporal than to stand there awkwardly if Levi didn’t want to hear Eren’s voice anymore tonight and decided to read it himself. “Not much,” Eren answers plainly before going through what Armin’s written.

They’ve only just gotten through half of Marco’s and his family’s records, and so far there really isn’t anything out of the ordinary. When Hange had first started digging into Eren’s past, Eren’s and his mother’s records were just as unrevealing. But Grisha Yaeger was a different story; the man not having any records in Shiganshina until the day he was brought in as a full-grown adult and full-fledged physician from outside the Wall set off all the alarm bells. That isn’t the case with the Bott Family. All of Marco’s forebears in the last three generations were well documented and accounted for, and their school and health records were unremarkable.

Levi listens quietly as Eren goes on. By the time Eren finishes the sun has set and the Corporal has gone through half the bottle of liquor by himself.

“So nothing then?” Levi asks brusquely and again Eren bristles.

“Nothing _yet_ ,” he grits out. His temper is starting to get the better of him again and he wills himself to calm down. Levi can clearly tell, though, and one side of his mouth quirks up. It only serves to infuriate the Titan Shifter even further. “Permission to speak freely, sir,” he asks, deciding to go out on a limb.

“What’s with you lately?” Eren blurts out as soon as Levi nods. “What did I do?”

Something in Levi’s eyes shuts like a curtain coming down, but he doesn’t break eye contact with the younger scout. “Nothing,” Levi answers unhelpfully and there’s no way Eren believes him.

“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”

“Well, it’s nothing you need to know right now,” the Corporal grits out, finally showing a reaction. Now Levi’s getting riled up, too, and normally Eren wouldn’t want that, but it’s the most emotion the Corporal has thrown his way in the last three days and Eren will take what he can get.

“There are a lot of things I don’t need to know, apparently,” he continues, glaring at him now and the other man stiffens slightly. A challenge sparks in Levi’s blue eyes and Eren is going to answer it right now, consequences be damned. “Why didn’t you tell me you think there’s a chance Marco is still alive?”

“Because I don’t.”

The Corporal looks him straight in the eye to let the words sink in, and Eren is shocked to hear the finality in his voice. This…this isn’t what Eren expected, and it must show on his face because Levi sighs and shakes his head. “So that’s what you’re all up to, walking around with your hoods up. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” He looks back at Eren and his eyes are trying but failing colossally to be sympathetic. “Look all you want. I don’t think he’s out there.”

“He could be,” Eren says shakily and even he can tell how weak he sounds. _Jean said there must be a reason they think Marco could still be alive,_ he thinks to himself. _Maybe Jean was wrong? Or is Levi toying with him?_ He looks at the Corporal’s face, but it’s as unrevealing as always. Surely Levi wouldn’t be so cruel? “What about the advanced squad then?” he asks. “And the Titans outside Wall Maria you said we had to kill? You were letting Armin get a good look at them to see if any of them was Marco, weren’t you?”

“All unnecessary risks and a waste of resources,” Levi says coldly. It sends a shiver down the Titan Shifter’s spine. The Corporal frowns then and the disapproval is clear on his face. “You act like it would be a good thing, finding him here. I don’t think you understand the implication of your friend having been in hiding all this time. Trust me, Eren, it’s better for you if your friend _isn’t_ found here.”

“Only because you think that’d make him the enemy,” Eren shoots back. “What if he isn’t?”

“Then he’s a traitor to the Crown for not coming forward, and an idiot for deciding to hide in the first place anyone would look for him.”

“It’s still home! Being able to transform into a monster doesn’t change that! It doesn’t change who we were before any of this happened!” Eren doesn’t realize he’s shouting until he sees the shock in Levi’s face, doesn’t realize he even stood up until he’s towering over the Corporal.

A heavy silence falls over them and Eren feels its crushing weight. Why did he say that? Where is this coming from? Why is he so adamant that Levi see Marco as an ally?

Of course the Legion would have their suspicions. Three out of five known Titan Shifters are directly responsible for everything that’s happened in the last six years, and even Ymir joined Reiner and Bertolt in the end. And there’s still that Beast Titan and the Quadrupedal Titan. They know Marley still has more. Eren’s own Titan form came from across the ocean, too.

But there’s something else. There’s another reason he’s taking this so personally, and it hits him like a solid punch to the gut when he realizes it.

When they first met, Levi had no qualms showing his revulsion toward the idea of a human being able to transform into a Titan. It was unnatural. Wrong. Levi didn’t see Eren for the person that he had been before any of this happened—not at first. Eren initially struggled to prove he was a competent scout, but it didn’t take long before he realized the real struggle was proving he was human at all. And even then Levi took so long to see it.

Is this how Levi behaved when they first found out about Eren? Did Erwin and Hange argue with the Corporal to make him see the advantage of keeping a Titan Shifter alive?

Did Levi write off Eren’s humanity as easily as he’s writing off Marco’s now?

Levi regards him thoughtfully for a moment before he shakes his head again. Disappointment rolls off him in waves.  “This is precisely why we didn’t tell any of you. Your judgement is clouded. You’re too emotionally compromised.”

Levi reaches out and takes Eren’s shoulder, pushing him gently back down onto his seat. He moves to sit directly in front of the Titan Shifter without letting go of the younger scout. “Eren, we’ve been clear from the beginning. I don’t think your friend survived at all, and the Commander having us search the town for him is perfunctory at best.” The Corporal sighs and runs his other hand through his dark hair tiredly. “But if the squad wants to help the scouts already looking for him then I won’t stop you.”

Eren gasps and his self-deprecating thoughts evaporate.

“That way, we’ll cover more ground and finish this assignment all the sooner,” Levi continues. “If it gets us back to the frontlines earlier then the squad can continue the search so long as you still get through all the records. The records are still the main objective here, Eren.”

Levi looks at him seriously to read his reaction. Eren can’t deny the flutter of excitement he feels at being allowed to search Jinae without having to go behind the Corporal’s back. His first impulse is to get up and tell the others, but Levi tightens his hold before he can move.

Eren quickly settles back down in his seat as Levi looks at him austerely. It’s like the temperature drops all of a sudden and the Titan Shifter almost shivers under the Corporal’s gaze.

“Eren, you know only one of us can be wrong,” Levi says gravely. “He’s either dead or alive, either an enemy or an ally. There is no in-between.”

The weight of his words settles over Eren. He knows what Levi is saying. They all have to be prepared to face the possibility that they’re wrong, but this will be more painful for him and his friends than it will be for the rest of the Corps. They have to be ready, whether they find a friend or a foe or never find Marco at all.

“We won’t let you down,” Eren says softly, meeting Levi’s eyes. “But with all due respect, I really hope you’re wrong.”

Levi’s lips twitch at his usual stubbornness. “Would you believe me if I said I do, too?” The Corporal gives him a half-smile then and Eren feels affection well up inside him until it almost hurts. His hand flies unbidden to the one Levi still has on his shoulder and he squeezes it so tightly he’s sure it must be uncomfortable for the Corporal. He hasn’t seen that smile in a while.

Levi doesn’t say anything, though. He just looks at Eren’s hand over his own as if in surprise before turning his grip over so their fingers intertwine. There’s an answering pressure around Eren’s hand that makes the Titan Shifter almost sigh in relief.

“You never make anything easy, do you, Eren?” Levi asks softly.

The younger scout chuckles sheepishly. “That’s my line.” He smiles and moves to bring their clasped hands to his lips. Now that his thoughts aren’t flying apart, he realizes it was wrong of him to take it personally. _Levi’s okay. They’re okay._ He doesn’t let his thoughts go back to the more dismal ones from earlier. This isn’t about him and Levi.

…or is it?

The Corporal retracts his hand when it’s inches from Eren’s face and he recoils—physically recoils—from the younger scout.

Eren freezes. He feels like he’s been struck by lightning.

“L-Levi?” He asks, confused. The Corporal is looking at him with a pained, almost horrified, look on his face, like he can’t believe what Eren is trying to do, and Eren feels just about every negative emotion he could possibly feel slam into him like a rockslide. He can’t even put a name on it; he just feels the sting of tears behind his eyes. Levi hasn’t looked at him like that in ages.

“There’s something else…” he says in a shaky whisper and the burning in his eyes is almost unbearable. Something _is_ wrong. What changed? Eren can’t think of anything that happened to make Levi start acting this way. They were fine up until they reached the Ocean. Now Levi doesn’t want him coming to report, doesn’t want to touch him?

As always— _always_ , and it will never change—Eren’s mind goes back to the fundamental problem of their relationship. It’s not about how old Eren is or that Levi is his superior. Eren is a monster, plain and simple, and some days that’s just too hard to accept. That look on Levi’s face just now… he’s seen it before during his first few days in the Corps—days spent in the dungeon being experimented on, surrounded by those assigned to kill him if they thought they couldn’t control him.

How many times did Eren just wish they _would_ kill him back then? Even now, there are still days he wishes they had.

They both get up at the same time.

“Eren—” Levi starts, and Eren wants to scream. He feels like he can’t get away from the other man fast enough. He’s halfway to the door when a loud incessant knocking comes from the other side.

“Captain Levi, sir!” someone calls in. He recognizes Sasha’s voice and the urgency in it. “Sasha Blouse reporting!”

Connie’s voice follows shortly after hers. “Oi, at least drink some water first, woman! Did you seriously run all the way back here?!”

Eren and Levi both freeze. They look at each other for a split second before they move with effortlessness borne from months of having to spring apart at a moment’s notice. Levi takes his seat behind his desk, but Eren doesn’t want to stand at attention in front of him like he’s supposed. He doesn’t want to be here at all anymore. To be honest, he wants to jump out one of the windows in the room.

As if sensing this, Levi glares at him dangerously, and Eren’s frown deepens until he feels like his face will cave in, but he does take his position in front of the Corporal’s desk. He has to force himself to stop shaking from how upset he is and only manages to get it down to a barely there tremor that runs throughout his whole body before Levi beckons the other two scouts into the room.

Sasha barely glances at Eren when she bursts in. She’s panting harshly like she’s just run a marathon, and Connie hovers worriedly behind her with a canteen of water.

“We’ve located the Bott Family, sir,” she gasps and Eren quickly picks himself up from the deep, dark place his mind has wandered off to at the news.

“Where?” Levi asks quickly as he stands and takes a map, unfolding it over his desk.

“At a farm ten klicks East from here,” she points it out on the map so Levi can mark it. “There was nothing out of the ordinary as far as we could tell so Jean sent me back to report and bring our horses. He’s keeping an eye on them right now,” she says before they can ask where he is. “Permission to rejoin him, Captain.”

Levi takes one look at her and shakes his head. “No, you’ve done enough for the day.”

Sasha looks like she wants to argue and Eren opens his mouth to volunteer himself, but Levi’s too fast for them both. “Send Mikasa to their location to join him on his watch. Jean has direct orders from the Commander so he stays there until sunrise. You can relieve them then,” he says to her. “Anything else to report?”

Sasha’s eyes waver for a moment. She obviously wants to go back to Jean herself, and Connie discretely pulls on her sleeve to keep her in check. She eventually relents. “The only occupants we saw are a woman and two boys. They must be Marco’s mother and younger brothers.”

“How can you tell?”

“They look just like him, sir. And…” Sasha seems to hesitate before she thinks the better of it and powers through. “Jean verified their identities. They bumped into us in a crowded market place and we heard them call each other by their first names, which match what Jean knows and what are in the records. Jean and I gave nothing away, and we made no contact other than that.”

Levi nods. “No one else leaves the outpost tonight,” he orders and Eren swears the man’s eyes flick to him momentarily. “Go back to going through the records tomorrow. You have my permission to search the town freely for whatever you think will help find anything on your friend, but do so in pairs.”

The surprise is clear on the two scouts’ faces. They both glance at Eren, but they don’t say anything.

Levi’s gaze narrows then and Eren knows this is the part where they all get reprimanded.

“I don’t know what you lot think you’ve figured out, but it’s obviously flown over heads that the advance squad was sent here to ascertain a low risk for our operation,” he tells them sternly. “You’re lucky they found nothing, otherwise I would have dragged you all back in myself the moment you decided to sneak out on your own. Did any of you even think about the danger you were all putting yourselves in?”

All three scouts look at each other guiltily. It never occurred to them that the Commander and Corporal were going to such lengths to ensure their safety and the success of the mission.

“We just wanted to find him first, in case—” Connie tries to explain, but the Corporal cuts him off.

“Don’t insult the Corps,” Levi growls. “At least you had the sense to leave Eren and Armin here, _where they will stay at all times_ throughout this operation unless otherwise ordered.” Levi makes sure to say it pointedly so that the message is clear, and Eren stiffens. Honestly, it had only been pure chance that it was decided he and Armin stay in the outpost to continue going through the records. Armin is the best at this sort of thing and Eren only stayed behind because he had been asked to keep Levi distracted from their movements.

But now that Levi’s given them permission, he wants to go out searching through Jinae with the others. He opens his mouth to say as much, but he takes one look at the Corporal’s face and stops. Levi stares him down, and Eren glares right back. Thoughts of the past three days, Marco, and their conversation right before the other two scouts came in race through his mind, and Eren’s not sure which one should take precedence. In the end they all boil down into a mess Eren wishes he could forget. The Titan Shifter feels cold fury flood into his veins—not the kind that makes him want to lash out, but the kind that makes him want to walk away from this and never return.

 _Fuck this,_ Eren thinks. _Fuck /you/._

He breaks eye contact and looks away, feeling the fight drain from him.

“We weren’t going to keep you in the dark for long,” Levi continues when he sees Eren concede. “The chance your friend is alive is still very remote and that hasn’t changed, but maybe you brats will have more luck than the advance squad did. We’ll go over your orders in the morning.”

The Corporal looks hard at each of their faces. Eren purposely keeps his eyes on one of Levi’s ears, looking at the man without actually meeting his gaze. He really doesn’t know if he can stomach those dark blue eyes ever again.

Levi sighs and waves them all off. “Blouse, Yeager, you’re dismissed. Relay the orders to Mikasa, and make sure Arlert gets some rest. Tell everyone to report here tomorrow as soon as Jean and Mikasa return.”

Sasha and Connie glance at each other in question because the shorter scout hasn’t been allowed to leave, but Eren turns to walk out immediately. Sasha only takes a split second more before she follows him.

“Wait!” Connie calls and he quickly runs over to hand Sasha the canteen of water. They smile sheepishly at each other as she takes it before Connie moves back to Levi’s desk to stand at attention. Eren and Sasha leave Levi’s office together without a backward glance.

The Titan Shifter stomps angrily down the hallway, pain and anger clawing at him from the inside. He feels even worse than he did when Levi first stopped talking to him. He’s never felt so wretched in his whole life.

Beside him, Sasha drinks from the canteen with large, noisy gulps. She really must have been parched. Eren waits for her to finish before he speaks. “Sasha, I know you’re tired, but can you give Mikasa her orders and tell Armin to rest?” He’s really not in the mood to see either one of them or anyone else tonight.

Sasha looks surprised by his request and she glances back at the closed door behind them. She probably wants to wait for Connie. “I…”

“Please?” Eren implores, and Sasha sighs as she nods.

“All right.” She turns away and starts walking briskly down the hall. Eren starts to go in the opposite direction. She’s only a few steps away when she turns back to him. “Eren?” she calls back. “What made the Captain change his mind?”

Eren stops in his tracks, but doesn’t turn around. He knows she’s referring to them conducting the search for Marco, but he can’t help but apply the question to an entirely different matter. “What changed Levi’s mind about Marco” quickly becomes “what changed Levi’s mind about Eren” in his head. _Focus on the mission_ , he tells himself even as he comes dangerously close to crying again. _This isn’t about you._ _This isn’t about Levi. This is about Marco._ He turns slowly where he stands to face her.

Sasha’s standing in the middle of the hallway, waiting for his answer. Her hair is damp with sweat—sweat that would have evaporated on Eren in seconds from how hot his body runs. There’s a small, shallow cut on her cheek, probably from running through crops in the Bott’s farm on her way back. It would have healed instantly if she was him. Sasha is human, so very human, and Connie will never look at her and see a monster where she stands.

Eren envies her humanity, and the thought hurts because now even he can’t see the human in himself anymore.

“Beats me,” he says blankly and if Sasha hears anything off in his voice she doesn’t say so. She bids him a good night before finally leaving to find the rest of their squad.

Once she’s gone, Eren stares at Levi’s closed door for a moment longer before he turns and continues down the hallway, determined to widen the distance between him and the Corporal for good.

* * *

Armin looks up at the sound of heavy footfalls and raised voices coming from the hallway. Recognizing Jean’s voice, he quickly leaves their quarters and follows the commotion.

Jean comes trudging down the hall and Armin’s surprised to see the fury in his tawny eyes. The sun is just beginning to rise behind him, and Mikasa comes through the entrance as well, looking annoyed.

“—not why we came here!” Jean is yelling at her, and it takes Armin aback. He’s never seen Jean yell at her that way before, and has definitely never seen Mikasa take that from anyone else but Eren well. But Mikasa doesn’t even respond. She still looks annoyed as she follows after the taller scout, but she doesn’t look like she wants to kill him.

Which means she knows that whatever she did was wrong.

 _Oh, no…_ Armin thinks as he waits for his friends to reach him.

“The Captain’s called a meeting,” he says as soon as they get near enough, and Jean’s glare turns to him. The taller scout’s eyes are like daggers in their intensity.

“I know that!” Jean grits out, practically pushing past the blond and into their room.

 _Whoa. What on Earth happened out there?_ Armin thinks. He looks at Mikasa who won’t meet his eyes even as she nods to him in greeting before she disappears into hers and Sasha’s room. _Do I even want to know?_

Jean heads straight for his pack once he reaches his bunk, rummaging through it for a fresh uniform. Sasha and Connie come bounding in from the mess hall when they hear the noise, but Armin holds them back. Now is clearly not the time to be getting in Jean’s way. They watch him as he throws his things around angrily before finally finding his uniform and then moving to the showers without another word. None of them stops him.

“Leave him be,” Armin says when it looks like Connie wants to. “Maybe it’ll calm him down.”

It doesn’t.

Jean’s as cantankerous as ever as they all make their way to Levi’s office. They tiptoe on eggshells around him, not wanting to set him off, and Jean doesn’t say anything to anyone. Mikasa joins them shortly, fresh from her own shower, and the tension between her and Jean is almost unbearable.

It gets even worse once they enter Levi’s office.

“Where’s Eren?” The Corporal asks, and Armin blinks in surprise. He had honestly thought the other Titan Shifter was already here. Eren is usually the first in the room every time Levi called a meeting. Armin even thought Eren had been with the Captain since yesterday because he wasn’t in their quarters last night. Whatever the two have between them isn’t exactly a secret to their squad.

“I...I don’t know, sir,” Armin answers honestly. All the others look around in question, but it’s clear nobody knows. “I haven’t seen him since last night.”

Mikasa’s irritated expression quickly changes to one of worry, and Armin starts to feel uneasy himself. But before either of them can ask for permission to look for their friend, the door opens and Eren comes in looking tired and haggard and…just awful in general. He wordlessly joins them to stand in front of Levi’s desk without looking at anyone.

Armin tries to make eye contact, but the brunette doesn’t look at him. Eren’s face is totally blank until he looks up and sees Levi, who’s watching him intently from across his desk. Blue-green eyes suddenly sharpen like knives and the tension radiates off the other Titan Shifter like a cat with its hackles raised.

What a lousy morning this is turning out to be…

If Captain Levi can sense the friction, he chooses to ignore it, turning his attention instead to Jean and Mikasa.

“Report,” he orders gruffly.

They both salute, but there’s a moment of hesitation. Mikasa looks especially tense, which is unlike her, and Jean’s brows come together in irritation. It’s like neither of them knows who should start so Levi chooses for them.

“Kirstein,” the Corporal says dangerously, almost at a growl. He clearly doesn’t miss the strain in the room and it’s starting to wear on his limited patience. “Report.”

Jean nods and steps up to his desk. “We located the Bott family and their farm at 1800 hours yesterday. As per the Commander’s orders, we observed them without making any contact for the duration of the night. The area is clear.” He takes a deep breath. “The boys and their mother are no threat, Captain.”

He says the last part fervidly, and Levi looks at him for a long moment before his eyes slide over to Mikasa. She gives him a barely perceptible nod of her head.

“Good,” the Corporal says. “One of the scouts from the advance squad will continue to keep an eye on them. If they aren’t a threat then that should be no problem,” he adds when the sandy-haired scout looks like he wants to say something.

Jean nods and steps back into the line with the others.

“Now, on to another matter.” Levi turns to Armin now. “Arlert, I want to go over your more pertinent findings from the archives with everyone here,” the Corporal starts. “Tell us what you’ve found.”

Like the first night by the ocean, all eyes turn toward him. Armin swallows his nervousness and presents the files he brought along with him, stepping forward and laying them out on the Corporal’s desk. He made sure to finish Marco’s records first and then spent most of the night looking through them again and again, cross-checking what he could where he could, and stopping only when the candles ran out. What he sent with Eren last night was just a general write-up of everything he’s read at that point. He didn’t start trying to connect the dots until hours had passed and he was still lying awake in his bed, unable to sleep.

“I’ve looked through all of Marco’s and his family’s records, but nothing really stood out to me except for three things.” He turns to Jean then and regards him seriously, hoping the gravity of the situation will get through the hothead’s bad mood. “I need you to verify one of them for us, Jean.”

The taller scout looks surprised, but he nods.

“The first is that he’s the first Military Recruit from Jinae in almost a decade, but most of us already knew that.” It’s a piece of information only the closest of Marco’s friends knew back in their training days. It was one of the reasons they were ecstatic when they found out he was graduating with high distinction. “What we didn’t know was that he excelled in school right from the start. He scored the highest marks any of the schools in Jinae have ever seen, and his talent in sports was unparalleled here. He participated in a lot of the town competitions and won first place every time.”

He stops to see if they catch the significance.

“He didn’t seem like anything special when we started training, though,” Sasha says, thoughtfully. “He was just like us.”

Armin’s lips twitch. “Not all of us, Sasha. Remember everyone in this room except me made it into the top ten out of hundreds of recruits. Take it from me, guys. You were all on a different level from most of the cadets back then,” he says wryly. “Reiner, Bertolt, Annie, and Eren were in the top five,” he reminds them. “Marco ranked number seven, but do you remember how it was obvious he was going to be in the top ten as early as our first year?”

It’s true. Mikasa and Reiner had been obvious since day one. Bertolt, Annie, and Marco quickly followed. Everybody admired their skill throughout training; they were the ones people looked up to right from the start. The others who made it into the top 10 had been neck and neck with other cadets like Thomas, Franz, and Ymir up until graduation, but those five were always sure to be somewhere in the top ten, and everybody knew it.

“That’s why I kept calling him ‘Mr. Honor Student’”, Jean says softly and Armin nods.

“We all know he held himself back to improve our teamwork at the expense of his own points,” Armin continues. “How much higher up do you think he would have ranked if he didn’t?”

They all look at each other thoughtfully, no doubt going back to their memories of Marco from training. He had always been humble about his achievements and never hesitated to help anyone who asked for it. Back then, it was easy to forget Marco was a cut above the rest when the freckled cadet took the effort to make sure nobody ever felt like there was a gap between him and whoever he was with. It was never a competition with Marco. It always felt like he was rooting for you, too.

“Are you saying he had some sort of edge?” Connie asks. “Even back when he was just a kid?”

Armin hesitates at that. He doesn’t know if he should say it out loud just yet. Maybe he should wait until he can talk to Commander Hange again or just the Corporal himself, alone. What he’s come up with…what he’s about to suggest… there might be no going back after this, and who is he to take them down this path? He looks to the Corporal for a cue, wondering if this information is too sensitive to be shared with even his own squad. He really should have gone over this with the Corporal beforehand. Not even Levi knows what he’s about to say next.

Levi regards him searchingly before he nods. “Go on.”

Amin sighs. Why did it always have to be him? “I’m saying it would certainly have caught a lot of attention,” he tells them. “If someone wanted to create a Titan Shifter within the Walls, they’d have to choose the best candidate, wouldn’t they?”

As expected, his words have an immediate effect and everybody’s eyes widen in shock. Armin wishes he wasn’t already used to this.

“So he could have been targeted,” Levi murmurs. “Hange and I didn’t think of that.” The Corporal quickly takes out some paper and a pen and starts jotting down notes.

“Couldn’t he have been born with it?” Sasha asks and Armin shakes his head. That’s one of the first things he considered, but it doesn’t add up.

“According to Eren’s memories, the power of Ymir can be passed on to a newborn if the Titan Shifter who holds it dies before anyone can inherit it. But they only live to be thirteen years old; that doesn’t change no matter how they acquire the power,” he explains, trying his best not to think about what that means for Eren and himself. “Marco was sixteen so he couldn’t have been born with it. That brings us to the next thing I wanted to show you.”

He carefully unrolls an old yellowing piece of parchment with a lock of dark hair taped on it and a faded imprint of tiny hands and feet on the bottom. Then he puts it next to Marco’s file from their last year of training that they were able to pick up when they re-supplied in Trost on their way to Jinae. “Marco was born here. This birth certificate wasn’t tampered with, and the finger prints match the ones on record in Trost. The rest of his documents weren’t forged either,” he says, gesturing to various school records and looking at all his friends. “Guys, he didn’t come from Marley. He was a true Jinaean from within the Walls.”

Again, the change in the room is instant, but this time it’s softer—almost gentle—like a ripple in the water. Armin makes sure to look at Jean after he says it, but apart from the tightening of the corners of his eyes, the taller scout’s face doesn’t change. Sasha’s lip trembles slightly, though, and Connie closes his eyes. One by one the tightness in their shoulders melts away. Armin can’t put it into words, and he’s surprised at his own emotions, considering he’s been going over all this again and again since last night. Marco wasn’t like Reiner, Bertolt, or Annie. Marco was Marco.

“He was always who he said he was,” Eren says, speaking for the first time this morning. His voice is hoarse.

Nobody sees Mikasa clench her fists at her sides.

“What’s the last thing?” Connie asks once the moment passes.

Armin clears the lump in his throat and quickly brings them back on track “There was something in his health records,” he tells them, pulling out the relevant file. “He was confined in the local hospital for a few nights following a logging accident two weeks before he left for training. That’s what I wanted to confirm with you, Jean,” he turns to the taller scout. “Did you know about this?”

“He mentioned it once.” Like Eren’s, Jean’s voice is a little rough. It sounds like his throat’s closed up, and he has to stop and clear it before he can continue. “He said it nearly cost him the Military entirely, but he got back on his feet in time. I didn’t think anything of it.”

Armin nods thoughtfully and writes that down in his notes. “The records say he was unconscious throughout the night despite them finding no injuries, and when he woke up he said he couldn’t remember what happened.” He takes a shaky breath from how close that hits to home. “Just like Eren. Just like me.”

He looks at each of them then, and only Eren’s eyes convey the sort of restrained horror that Armin feels himself. _It must have been then… it must have happened then…_ The rest are just looking at him with a question he wishes he didn’t have to answer in their eyes.

“We came here to find out how he became a Titan Shifter, and I still don’t know the specifics,” he admits. “I don’t even know if I’m on the right track. But whatever happened to Marco...I think someone did this to him,” he tells them, and there’s a collective gasp from everyone in the room.

“Someone turned a human being into a Titan Shifter within the Walls.”

* * *

_“THREE CHEERS FOR THE 104th!!!!” Thomas and Samuel yell, each swinging a mug of ale in the air. The drinks slosh and spill over the brim, spraying the cadets around them, but nobody cares. They’ve all just graduated, and top ten or no, this called for a celebration of epic proportions! In the middle of the mess hall, Connie stands on top of a table imitating Shadis loudly while Sasha and Mina play the part of terrified cadets, making everyone laugh. Even Eren loosens up, sitting on a bench between Armin and Mikasa and laughing at something one of them says. They all have either food or liquor, if not both, in their hands as they join each other in merriment._

_Jean’s a little more than buzzed himself and he’s probably got his signature shit-eating grin on his face. He ranked number 6! He’s joining the Military Police! The only fly in the ointment is that Eren ranked higher than he did, but it’s not like Jean had the advantage of Mikasa’s coaching and Armin’s tutoring to get him through the last three years. Nope, Jean clawed his way to his rank by his own damned self and he’s mighty proud of that._

_Several people raise their glasses to Jean when he catches their eyes as he looks around. He smiles and earnestly returns the gesture. Half the people in his class probably can’t stand him on a good day, but he’s never stepped on anyone’s toes to get to where he is and, cocky asshole attitude aside, that’s still something they can respect._

_Laughter erupts from one corner of the mess hall, and Jean turns toward the sound to find Marco being passed from one fellow cadet to another, receiving pats on his back and arms around his neck in congratulations. Half of the brunette’s drink is on his shirt from all the manhandling, but there’s no thwarting the smile on that freckled face._

_Marco Bott, the first recruit from Jinae in almost a decade, ranked number seven and can sign up for the Military Police with Jean. Can life get any better than this?_

_“Jean!” Marco beams when the brunette spots him. The freckled teen brightens like nothing else, and Jean feels elation bubble inside him in response as they lock their arms around each other in a tight hug._

_“Where’ve you been, man?” the younger cadet asks, laughing at Marco’s exuberance._

_“Packing! I’m a mess; my stuff’s all over the place!” The brunette replies, gesturing wildly with the hand that’s still holding a drink and swaying them both on the spot. Marco’s obviously past tipsy, too. He’s leaning heavily against the shorter cadet and his cheek is hot where it’s pressed against Jean’s. “I’ve only just found all my shirts just now!”_

_Jean snorts. Boy, can he believe that. Jean’s already packed and ready to go—most of their classmates are—but Marco’s things were no doubt in various nooks and crannies in the barracks given how messy the older cadet is. He can’t count the number of times he and other cadets have found Marco’s things in their own spaces. A quarter of the things Jean went through in his own foot locker as he packed were Marco’s, and he’ll bet his first month’s salary everybody in the barracks has had something of Marco’s mysteriously wind up with their stuff at some point in the last three years._

_“Need help?” Jean offers, pulling away far enough so they can see each other’s faces, but not so far that he has to let go of the other cadet. After three years living in such close proximity, nobody even raises a brow at their easy affection._

_Marco laughs, still swaying. “I wasn’t gonna ask, but it looks like I’ll need it if I want to finish by tomorrow!”_

_Jean rolls his eyes and throws an arm around Marco’s shoulders as he steers them toward the door. They don’t bother bidding anybody a good night. The festivities will likely continue throughout the evening in their quarters anyway. He and Marco better get started now before the rooms start filling with rowdy inebriated cadets after they all inevitably get kicked out of the mess hall._

_“I knew it,” Jean pretends to grouse when they reach their bunks. He takes in the books and articles of clothing strewn about on the mattress next to Marco’s half-packed rucksack. “I’ll be spending the rest of my days helping you find your damned socks every morning.”_

_Marco’s shoulders shake as he snickers. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me,” the brunette says as he pulls back to look at Jean’s face. The sides of his eyes wrinkle with warmth and mirth. “I’ll hold you to that.”_

_Jean’s heart does a quick somersault in his chest as Marco’s smile seems to widen before he extricates himself from the younger cadet’s hold and starts reaching for his things. Jean climbs on the bunk on wobbly limbs himself to help._

_It dawns on Jean as he sloppily folds his best friend’s shirts that he’s been dreading this day as much as he’s been looking forward to it. This is their last day as trainees. Only the top ten get to choose to join the MP’s, and there had never been a guarantee he and Marco would actually make it. There were several close calls: training exercises gone wrong, exams that were harder than they expected, infractions they either didn’t know they were committing or thought they could get away with that cost them a few points. Finding out they both made it into the top ten today made Jean feel like he could finally release a breath he didn’t even know he was holding._

_This would have been their last day together if one of them ended up not making it into the top ten._

_Or if one of them changed his mind._

_The thought comes unbidden and unwelcome, making Jean frown. He turns to look at Marco who’s lying on his back now, unable to hold any other position from how smashed he is. The freckled brunette is shoving loose sheets of paper into his various books and doesn’t seem to notice Jean staring at him._

_Sure, they once said they’d bunk together if they both made it into the MP’s, but they’ve had a lot of time to change their minds since then and it’s been a while since they’ve seriously talked about it. Jean knows nothing will stop him from joining the MP’s. He decided that before he even signed up for the Military. Safe within the protection of the innermost walls, dying an old man never having seen an actual Titan…a long life, a happy life—that’s what he wants. That’s what he’s always wanted. He never even considered the Garrison or the Scouting Legion._

_So why is he so worried Marco might have changed his mind?_

_Jean’s can’t say he’ll do the same even if Marco does, but if there’s one thing that will at least make him think twice about joining the MP’s, it’s the freckled cadet deciding he’d rather be somewhere else._

_Jean sighs, putting aside the shirts he’s folded. He reaches out and takes one of Marco’s ankles in hand so he can drag him across the mattress to where he wants him. Marco stops what he’s doing and looks at him curiously as Jean slides down next to him to lie on his stomach. The packing is momentarily forgotten._

_“It’s still the MP’s, right?” Jean asks Marco softly. “For you and me?”_

_He’s thought about the two of them having to go their separate ways more times than he cares to admit. It was hard, thinking about it early in their training when Jean was struggling to make friends and it felt like Marco was all he had. It got even harder when the hormones kicked in and his thoughts somehow veered from Mikasa’s porcelain face to the freckles that dotted Marco’s skin._

_Now that Marco is the first person he looks for in any given situation—whether Jean’s on a roll or royally fucking up, whether he feels like he’s unstoppable or like he’s at the end of his rope? The thought is unbearable, and it leaves a foul taste in his mouth every time he thinks about it: Marco not being there. Because heated arguments, stolen glances in the showers, and raging hormones aside, Marco is Jean’s best friend first and foremost. And if the lingering looks and touches mean anything more then, well, they have the rest of their lives to find out, don’t they? If they really are still going to be together after today, that is._

_Marco puts the book he’s jamming papers into aside and turns his head to look at the younger cadet. They’re both lying on the brunette’s bunk, their faces only inches apart and their bodies touching in several places now that they’ve grown significantly since they started training. This kind of proximity never bothered them, but it’s one thing to think nothing of it and another to practically revel in it the way Jean has been for probably the past year. Can Jean really give this up if he has to?_

_Blissfully unaware of Jean’s fears, Marco just nods.  “Of course, Jean. Definitely the MP’s,” he answers easily. “For the King.”_

_/Fuck the King/, Jean wants to say but he grins instead, somehow feeling lighter than air now that Marco’s confirmed it.. “Life and limb, huh?” He says, reiterating what he eventually found out was Marco’s answer to Shadis’s question back in their first day of training._

_The freckled cadet chuckles at the old joke and gets up to resume packing. “Yeah, life and limb,” Marco says, sounding bolstered. And then he smirks. “Someone has to keep you out of trouble anyhow.”_

_Jean laughs and tackles his best friend back down onto the mattress. “Well, fuck /you/, Mr. Honor Student!”_

_He doesn’t know when it hit him exactly, how much Marco has come to mean to him. He can chalk it up to hormones and the fact that the only girls he knows are girls who can disarm or kill him as fast as any full-grown man can, but he knows this is different. He knows that /Marco/ is different. He’s never come to know another person as well as he knows Marco. He’s never cared about anyone other than himself before, and he sure as hell has never met anyone who cares about him the way he knows Marco does._

_He wants Marco in all the ways anyone can want another person, and maybe it’s the alcohol talking or the fact that he and Marco are currently tangled in a messy heap, but Jean suddenly doesn’t feel like waiting until they move into the interior to let the freckled brunette know._

_“Hey, I need to tell you something,” Jean says seriously, and Marco must catch it in the tone of his voice because he stops struggling under Jean’s weight and looks at the younger cadet with eyes that are far clearer than they should be given the amount of alcohol he’s had._

_They both sit up and move closer in perfect synch, and there’s a question in Marco’s eyes, admixed with excitement and anticipation, like the older cadet actually knows what Jean’s going to say. And maybe he does know, just like how Jean knows with every fiber of his being that Marco won’t turn him away after he says this._

_It really isn’t as terrifying as Jean thought it would be, standing on the edge of a sheer drop he wants to let himself fall into._

_He takes a deep breath. “Marco, I—”_

_“OI, GET A ROOM YOU TWO!”_

_The two cadets jump when Franz’s loud voice booms throughout the room followed by the laughter of probably their entire class behind him. It looks like they’ve finally been kicked out of the mess hall._

_“Well, we did, but you ruined it!” Marco yells back at them jokingly and they all burst into laughter again. No one notices that the redness on Jean’s face has nothing to do with the alcohol now._

_Franz only grins widely at them as about a dozen other cadets squeeze themselves through the threshold behind him to enter the room and continue celebrating. Jean has half a mind to kick the taller cadet’s face in for his horrid timing, but ends up being glad that he doesn’t when Franz practically crows: “SHE SAID YES!”_

_The whole room explodes with cheers and best wishes, and across the hallway shrill shouts blare out from the girls’ rooms as Franz’s better half no doubt makes the announcement herself. Franz Kefka and Hannah Diamant are getting married!_

_The halls are filled with laughter and ale is passed around until everyone has had more than their fill. It goes on until the dead of night, and by the time things have quieted down Jean can’t even see straight from how drunk he is._

_/Gonna fucking miss this/, Jean thinks, listening to most of the friends he’s made in the last three years snoring loudly around him. A lot of them will be going their separate ways after tomorrow, but they’ll always have this to look back on no matter where they end up in the future._

_The mattress suddenly dips under someone’s weight and he turns his head to see Marco extricating himself from under the tangled bodies of probably four or five passed out cadets until he’s finally free enough to roll into the mattress next to Jean._

_“So what were you going to tell me?” Marco asks and Jean only blinks at him at first before he remembers. Marco looks so plastered, Jean’s surprised the other cadet remembers who he is, much less what they were talking about an hour or two ago._

_“Forget it,” Jean says tiredly, already feeling himself drifting off to sleep. He’s exhausted and he doesn’t want to do this when the world is spinning the way it is. “I’ll tell you tomorrow when you’re not so shit-faced.”_

_“You’re just as shit-faced as I am, Jean.” Marco looks a little put out, but he sidles up to Jean happily enough when the younger cadet makes room for him._

_“Yeah, well, trust me,” Jean murmurs. “I don’t run the risk of forgetting this in the morning.”_

_“And I do?”_

_Jean looks at Marco then. The brunette is lying on his stomach, pillowing his red face on his crossed arms. His brown eyes are soft and serene, focusing on Jean’s face with what little focus Marco can manage in his present condition. Jean could tell him now actually, tell him now while the alcohol still in their system drives out all their fears, uncertainties, and shame. He could tell him now and tell him again tomorrow—tell Marco again and again everyday if he wants._

_But he doesn’t. He wants to be sober when he does, wants to be huddled together just like this in their new room in the interior, not flushed and sweaty and smelling like ale with various arms, legs, heads, and feet from drunken friends encroaching into their personal space. “Don’t wanna take that chance,” is all he says._

_Marco only hums and closes his eyes, settling deeper into the mattress. He’s not going to fight Jean on this. Not when they have the rest of their lives. “I never finished packing,” Marco mutters sleepily. He’s starting to drift off, too, but Jean wouldn’t put it past him to try and finish despite how knackered they are so he throws an arm and a leg over the brunette._

_“Leave it for tomorrow,” he says, closing his eyes and tightening his hold on his friend to pin him in place._

_Marco sighs, but relaxes in the other cadet’s hold. “We can’t always just leave things for tomorrow, Jean.”_

_“No?” Jean opens his eyes a fraction and sees Marco’s things still scattered around them. Moving his leg over Marco’s hip, he kicks the half-packed rucksack off the bed and onto the floor, out of sight and out of mind._

_“Well, we can today.”_

* * *

Jean wakes up slowly, feeling like he’s been asleep for years. He’s tired—so tired—and the exhaustion is deep in his bones, but he forces himself to get up. The sun is high and the quarters are empty. He’s slept too long.

They only have a day left.

The thought has him rolling out of bed to look for his boots, but he stops when he sees Armin sitting on the bunk across from him. The blonde has obviously been watching him and Jean nods as the blue-eyed scout puts down the papers he’s reading.

“’Morning, Jean,” Armin says quietly and Jean blinks groggily before slumping back down on the mattress. It’s sloppy, and under normal circumstances anyone would reprimand him for it, but given what he’s been going through the last few days Armin lets it slide.

To his credit, even half-asleep, Jean cuts right to chase. “Found anything new?” he asks, and Armin sighs.

“At least eat something first.” The blond reaches for the bread and water Sasha left for their friend and offers it to him, but Jean doesn’t take it. The taller scout scans the empty quarters around them and sees how brightly the sun spills into the room before he finally meets Armin’s gaze.

“You all let me sleep in.”

Armin nods. “You looked like you needed it.”

Armin expects an angry outburst, knowing Jean as well as he does, but it doesn’t come. The taller scout just sighs softly before sitting up in bed again to try and get his bearings.

Having rehearsed his rebuttal for the argument he was expecting, Armin doesn’t know what to say to this. Jean’s face is blank as he refastens his straps and straightens his uniform. It shouldn’t be unusual, but something feels…off. This isn’t how he was expecting the sandy-haired scout to behave after what Armin told them that morning.

None of them took the news he gave them earlier easily. The possibility that someone did this to their friend when he was little more than a child is just as bad as Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie leaving him for dead that day of the attack on Trost. Eren took it especially hard; the situation hit too close to home and he kept his distance from the others, needing some time to himself to come to terms with it.

Armin had to stay another hour alone with Levi to go over everything just to make sure the theory isn’t too far-fetched. The Corporal thinks there’s some merit to what Armin’s suggesting, but they know too little and they’re running out of time. So Levi ordered most of their squad to stay in the outpost to look through anything the archives might have around the dates of Marco’s accident while Sasha and Mikasa rode out with the members of the advance squad to continue their search.

Jean is supposed to help with the records now that he’s awake, and Armin thought that he would jump right into it considering they only have a day left before they all had to ride back and regroup with the rest of the Legion. But the minutes go by and Jean’s still in bed like he doesn’t really want to leave it. This isn’t like Jean at all.

“Jean, what’s wrong?” Armin asks, wondering if his friend will even answer him. A couple of hours of sleep won’t fix what Jean’s going through, and Armin gets that, but time is of the essence and they can’t have him malingering when they need all the brains they can muster up right now. Armin has no choice but to get straight to the point. “Mikasa told me what happened last night.”

Jean fingers pause as he fastens his chest strap, and an unidentifiable emotion flashes on his face before it disappears again. “The kids—Marco’s brothers—went into the barn late last night when their mother was sleeping,” he starts without further prompting. “When I saw them leave their beds, I thought for sure that…”

Jean trails off, hesitating, so Armin gently pushes him along the conversation, if only so the other scout can get it out. He knows what they thought. He would’ve come to the same conclusion if it had been him there that night. “Mikasa told me you stood between them, between her and Marco’s brothers,” he tells him. “She said you told her she’d have to slice right through you to get to them. Is that true?”

This time the taller scout glares and he resumes snapping his straps into place. “They’re just _kids_ ,” Jean says, finally getting out of bed and putting on his boots.

“The Marleyans who destroyed Wall Maria and our homes were ‘just kids’,” Armin reminds him. “She had good reason to be suspicious. You know that.”

“She was going to go in there, blades hot and guns blazing because she was so sure Marco was in there,” Jean growls, throwing his jacket over shoulders. The anger in his voice is clear, but Armin is glad to hear it. It means Jean is coming back out from whatever shell he had crawled into after this morning’s meeting. “Is that what it’s come down to? We’re gonna kill him on sight, collateral damage be damned? Did she tell you what was in there? What we found when I finally convinced her there was no way I was letting her in armed to the teeth?”

Mikasa did tell Armin, but he lets Jean answer his own question.

“Kittens,” the sandy-haired scout spits out. “They were hiding a litter of kittens their mom told them she didn’t want to keep around. What kind of trauma do you think we’d have given them if we burst in there like she wanted us to?” He shakes his head. “They’ve been through enough.”

Jean’s in full uniform now and, apart from an empty stomach, ready to get started. And they should, Armin knows. He’s heard all this from Mikasa earlier, and doesn’t feel the need to defend her actions. She might have been rash, but her heart has always been in the right place. If Marco had been in the barn, if there was any reason to think he was a threat, she would have killed him and anyone that got in her way. Even Marco’s brothers. Maybe even Jean himself if he tried to stop her. She would have killed them all to keep everyone else safe.

But that’s because she didn’t know then what they all know now.

And there’s another matter Armin wants to discuss.

“Mikasa said you went into the house through one of the windows,” Armin says, watching Jean’s reaction carefully. It’s something Jean neglected to tell them earlier this morning, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why he left it out. Commander Hange’s orders were to merely observe the Botts and make no contact. “You could have compromised the entire mission if you got caught. You could have put the Bott’s themselves in danger.” Armin frowns. The taller scout has always had a good head on his shoulders so Armin wants to know why Jean did what he did when he knew it could jeopardize everything they were trying to do here.

Jean looks like he’s wondering the same thing himself or maybe just wondering where to start. “Yeah, I was wrong to do it,” Jean admits after a while, putting his hands on his hips and heaving a great sigh. He looks irritated, but more at himself than anyone else really. Then it passes and Jean’s eyes take on a more somber light. Armin’s surprised when the other scout walks his way and takes the bread he previously ignored, taking a bite and then chewing on it slowly.

Again, Armin waits.

“You didn’t see what I saw,” Jean says quietly after he swallows. “The kids threw me off when they got up so late at night, but I…Armin, I took one look at that family and knew Marco wasn’t there. I can’t explain how, but I knew.” Jean doesn’t look at Armin. His eyes are fixed on a faraway point only he can see as his mood makes a complete 180-degree turn. “When I was watching them in that house, there was one more room in there. None of them went in there, not once. I…I knew it had to be Marco’s so I broke in.”

Armin’s eyes widen.

“I told myself it was because I had to make sure that area was clear, too, but as soon as I walked in, I knew why I had to do it. I wanted to see what it was like.” Jean bites his lip to keep it from trembling before he continues. “His things were there. From the training barracks, I mean. All in a rucksack in the middle of his bed. The Military must have sent them to his mother after Trost and only half of it was unpacked, like someone started to and then just stopped halfway through. Everything was still there: His shirts. His shoes. Books. Letters. Armin, he…he kept every single sketch I ever made for him, stuffed them into books like the slob he always was.”

The taller scout’s eyes mist over then and his voice starts to go hoarse, but to Armin’s surprise he’s able to manage a watery smile and a soft chuckle. “Marco and I packed that thing ourselves the morning after the disbandment ceremony,” Jean tells him almost fondly. “We almost didn’t make it to formation in time that day because we were so hungover we could barely get out of bed.” Then his face crumples and he pinches the bridge of his nose with a shaky hand. “That was probably one of the last things we ever did together. And that’s all that’s left of him: a fucking rucksack his own family couldn’t even bring themselves to unpack…”

Armin stiffens, hearing the change in the way Jean’s talking about Marco now in his voice, seeing it on the look on his face. It’s subtle, like a stone settling on the river bed or a petal falling from a flower, but it’s there and Armin can feel it as surely as he can feel his own heart beating in his chest.

“He really is gone, isn’t he?” Jean asks in a soft whisper and he has to pause for a long time as his emotions threaten to overwhelm him again.

Armin’s glad for the reprieve because it suddenly feels like something is tearing his heart in two inside his chest. He doesn’t know what to say or do. He hates seeing Jean this way, so hurt and unhappy even as he comes to terms with Marco’s passing a second time.

Everything Jean’s done since they found the ocean, whether he acknowledged it himself or not, has been to find Marco. In spite of everything that’s happened—Marco being a Titan Shifter, Marco most likely having met his end outside Wall Rose, and then the possibility that Marco had been hiding here all this time, that he might have been an enemy all this time—Jean had no idea how much he was hoping he’d still find Marco until it became clear that he wasn’t going to.

Armin reaches for Jean slowly, watching out for any sign that the gesture is unwelcome. When he doesn’t see one, he carefully places a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“We always knew it was a long shot, Jean,” Armin says sadly. Even with the Commander’s wild theories and their own presumptions regarding the advance squad and what the Legion was really looking for, it just didn’t seem likely that anyone could survive on the other side of the Walls for that amount of time.

He wonders if Jean will resent him for how easily it looks like he’s taking this. It’s _not_ easy; Marco was his friend, too. But the moment Commander Hange gave them the order to ride to Jinae, he and Jean set out looking for entirely different things. Jean may not have found what he was looking for, but Armin did.

“I want to show you something,” he says, gently turning the other scout to face him. Jean’s eyes are bright with unshed tears, but he does face Armin. The blonde then pulls out a roll of parchment he’s set aside from before, one that he’s kept with him at all times since he found it. It’s Marco’s birth certificate, the same one he showed them all this morning. He can tell from the look in Jean’s eyes that the other scout recognizes it, too.

“I’ve been looking at this since last night. I can barely keep my eyes off it.” Armin tells him. He passes it to Jean who only stares at it, speechless. Armin doesn’t know if it means as much to other scout as it does to Armin, seeing that soft, dark lock of hair and the faded ink of Marco’s prints. He knows it doesn’t prove anything other than that their friend didn’t come from Marley, but for Armin, who’s never stopped wondering why Annie had Marco’s gear, it puts one important issue to rest.

Marco’s innocence. Marco’s humanity.

Marco Bott didn’t grow up thinking the people within the walls were demons from hell. He didn’t grow up hating a race he never had any contact with. He didn’t grow up believing the people across the ocean had to die so they could live in peace.

Marco grew up here in Jinae with his mother and brothers. He went to school, played sports, grew crops, read to his brothers, and then left for Military training where he reached for his dreams, met his friends, and became a fine young soldier.

Whoever Marco had been to each of them in the few years they had him in their lives…nothing can take that away now, and looking at Jean’s face, Armin can tell that the significance of the old piece of parchment Jean is holding in his shaking hands isn’t lost on him.

“If it’s any consolation, Mikasa feels terrible about her behavior last night,” Armin whispers gently, and Jean barks a startled laugh even as an errant tear rolls down his cheek.

“Yeah?” the sandy-haired scout says, wiping his ruddy cheeks. “Tell her to cry me a river.” Jean sniffs and Armin smiles, rubbing the slight burn of his own unshed tears away from his eyes. There’s no heat in the taller scout’s voice, no bitterness. Jean can’t hold Mikasa’s actions against her when they all know she would kill to keep Jean safe, too.

Looking at Jean now, Armin doesn’t know if it’s right of him to feel the way he does, but he can’t deny his relief. If anyone was going to hold on to the chance of ever finding Marco until his last breath, it would be Jean. But if Jean of all people can make peace with this—if Jean can let go— then Armin knows the others can, too. He knows they’ll be okay.

Jean stares at the lock of Marco’s hair a moment longer before he carefully rolls the parchment up and hands it back to Armin. “Thanks,” he says softly and his eyes are dry now.

Armin takes the document and places it back at his side, apart from the rest of the records they still have to through. “We’re going to find them, Jean,” Armin says suddenly when the other scout looks like he’s about to space out again. “Whoever did this to Marco. We’re going to find them, and we’re going to make them pay.”

He doesn’t say it angrily. There’s no real emotion behind it. It’s merely a fact that Armin wants to affirm. They _will_ get to the bottom of this someday and when that day comes, heads will roll.

Jean stares back at him evenly and the blonde knows he’s thinking the same thing. His tawny eyes are imperturbable, but there’s a cold fire burning in them if you look hard enough.

“Before or after we fuck Reiner up?” Jean asks and Armin doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to, and he makes that clear to the other scout with his eyes. They won’t ever stop hunting Reiner down. They won’t ever stop trying to get to Annie through that crystal. And now they won’t ever stop looking for whoever did this to Marco.

A sad sort of calm settles over them then. The melancholy is still there, but it isn’t as bleak as it was before. The air is different now. Ever since that night by the ocean, it’s as if someone’s opened the book to a different chapter in their lives, one they never saw coming, and each page was as moving as it was heartbreaking. Reliving the tragedy that took place in the shadows of Trost that day, and then searching for Marco and hoping against all hope they would still find him…they’ve come as low as anyone possibly can, and it’s time to look up again.

It’s time for them to heal.

Jean sighs and reaches for one of the larger sets of records, pulling it towards him. Armin draws back to give the other scout space. “Do you want me to go?” Armin asks, knowing Jean is past the worst of it, but also knowing the taller scout still likes to keep his distance when he gets like this.

Jean pauses to think about for a moment before he shakes his head. “Nah,” he says, getting up with the records in hand. He offers Armin a hand and pulls the blond up to stand with him. “Let’s work on these together.”

Armin nods and takes his own pile of documents. They have one day left, one day to try and solve this mystery. One day, and then they leave Jinae for good. There will be no running around town anymore, no more stalking the Botts. The answer, if they’re ever going to find it, has to be in the archives somewhere.

“Come on,” Jean says as he turns toward door and Armin follows him.

They’re barely out the threshold when they almost bump into Connie.

“There you are!” The other scout exclaims, making them both jump. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you two! Come with me!” Connie puts a firm hand on each of their backs and starts pushing them down the hall without preamble.

“What the hell, Connie?!” Jeans yells, immediately getting pissed off, and Armin’s caught off guard, too. Connie has no idea what they just went through in there before he arrived and Armin’s worried Jean will shut down again if he’s being given too much too soon. They were doing so well just now!

“Connie, where—” Armin starts, but Connie cuts him off.

“The Captain’s called another meeting,” Connie says quickly. “I fired a green flare over the outpost a few minutes ago so Sasha and Mikasa should be back soon if they aren’t already here.” He stops and lets go of both of his friends. “Have either of you seen Eren?”

“I’m right here,” a voice calls out and Eren steps out from one of the rooms further down the hall where he was going through records by himself. “What’s going on?”

“Captain Levi’s called for another meeting,” Connie repeats and Eren sighs.

“What does he want now?” Eren grouses tiredly. Armin catches the other Titan Shifter’s petulance, but Connie seems to have missed it entirely. But then Armin’s missed something himself.

Connie’s gray eyes are tense and the shorter scout almost seems jittery. It’s a far-cry from how Armin remembers him being earlier this morning. Knowing that someone was turning humans into Titans hit Connie right where it hurt, too. But there’s no mistaking it now. Jean’s still fuming and Eren looks distant, but Connie… Connie almost looks excited.

“Come on!” Connie says, pushing all three of them down the hall now. “We ain’t got all day!”

Sasha and Mikasa are already waiting for them when they reach the door to Levi’s office, and they all look at each other in question except for Connie who immediately knocks on the door. Captain Levi’s voice calls out for them to come in and they all enter together.

The Corporal is standing by his desk, deep in conversation with some members of the Garrison. He looks up when their squad enters his office, but otherwise doesn’t say anything so they all fall in line and stand at attention. The members of the advance squad are in the room as well.

There are maps and other documents on Levi’s desk and Armin can’t be the only one wondering what all this is about considering none of them gave the Corporal any of the records they borrowed from the archives.

“Arlert,” Levi calls once his discussion with the other soldiers is finished. Armin swallows.

 _Oh, what now?_ Armin thinks to himself.

“I'm going to ask you something and you need to think long and hard about it before you give me an answer,” the Corporal tells him gravely and Armin salutes. “Did you see that kid do anything that looked like the transformation was deliberate?”

Armin’s surprised by the question and he immediately finds himself back in Bertolt’s body in Trost, watching Marco’s limp form bleeding out in a Titan’s hold seconds before he transforms for the first time. Then he’s back on top of Wall Rose, grappling with the freckled cadet, trying to overpower him but accidentally letting him fall off the edge and then transform again.

“No, it didn’t look like it…” Armin says tremulously, trying to shake off the false feeling that he had been right there when it happened. “Otherwise he would have transformed before the Titan took a bite out of him.”

His friends all wince and Armin ducks his head apologetically before continuing.

“Surviving the injury inflicted by that Titan, surviving the fall from the top of Wall Rose…” He shudders and remembers another case where a Titan Shifter transformed without having any knowledge of the ability. “Eren lost an arm and a leg, and had been swallowed whole by a Titan before he transformed for the first time. Both incidents must have been triggered by the need for self-preservation. The need to survive.”

“Instinct,” Levi says pensively and Armin nods.

Levi goes quiet for a few moments, like he’s mulling things over in his head, before he turns to Connie this time. “Go ahead, Springer.”

“Sir!” Connie salutes then steps forward. He takes one of the documents on Levi’s desk and puts it out for all of them to see. They recognize the Garrison’s insignia stamped on them. None of them thought to look there.

“I was looking into the Garrison’s records when I found something,” Connie starts. “The number of Titans that reach the Walls in the area…there were never that many to begin with because the town isn’t in an outcropping of the Wall like Trost and Shiganshina, but their numbers were pretty regular. They’ve got it all on record here.” He points to a page where the Garrison made a tally of the Titans they encountered and eliminated along the Walls around Jinae. “Look how the number goes down steadily. Now I know that’s true for all towns since the Titan Guillotine, but for Jinae it started going down well before we even built the thing.” He looks up at them expectantly, but it’s clear they don’t quite follow.

“It started going down a few weeks after The Battle of Trost,” Connie clarifies. “ _Months_ before we built the Titan Guillotine!”

“They could have been drawn to the breach in Trost by Annie’s call,” Armin points out, but even as he says it he feels his skin go cold and his own heartbeat speed up.

“This far out?” Connie asks. “I don’t think so. We’re miles from Trost and Eren sealed the breach on the same day.” Connie frowns and seems to start to hesitate at that, suddenly unsure. But then as quickly as the uncertainty appeared, it’s gone and Connie’s eyes flash with tenacity. “And there's another thing…there were several expeditions outside the Wall in this area and the Garrison in Jinae regularly sent a squad of their own to join them as part of their routine patrol. They reported a decreased number of Titans outside the wall as well, but…” Connie reaches for a few more documents and then spreads them out on the desk. “There are reports of an aberrant spotted on at least six different occasions in the past year.”

Armin’s mouth goes dry and he steps up to scan the documents himself without being told. _Is Connie saying what I think he’s saying?_ His blue eyes rake the reports, taking in the dates and the coordinates, his brain already working double time while Connie continues talking.

“They call it an aberrant because it never attacks,” Connie says quickly. “It just watches them from miles away. And get this, guys…every time they try to confront it to draw it out, it _leave_ s!”

Armin gasps, verifying everything Connie’s just said from the reports in front of him. He turns to the others quickly, feeling his heart pounding so hard and fast in his chest he’s afraid he’ll faint. The members from the Garrison and the advance squad listen in rapt attention, but Levi Squad’s reaction is completely different. They’ve all been rendered speechless, and the comprehension is clear on their faces. They understand what Connie’s getting at now. _Could it be…?_ They’re all thinking. _Could it be…?!_

“Guys…” Connie says breathlessly. His whole face is bright with determination.

“We've been looking on the wrong side of the Wall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your time! The next chapter WILL be the last one! Please let me know what you think!


End file.
